Stocking Up On Stocking Stuffers

   Holidays are full of tradition and our home is no exception. It’s a tradition that I string lights outside. It’s a tradition that I pull the boxes of decorations down from the attic and it’s a tradition that I assemble the artificial tree.

   Some traditions I carried forward from my childhood and others I inherited from my in-laws. Still, they are all traditions and Christmas doesn’t seem complete without them.
    One tradition that I inherited from my in-laws was stocking stuffers. No matter how much preparation and shopping went into Christmas for five children, Gladys Brownrigg left the stockings to John, my father-in-law.
   John was an engineer and a salesman and a guy who loved gadgets. He took the role of stuffing stockings away from Santa as the kids grew older and seemed to enjoy filling them with objects that teenagers might find useful as they became more independent.
   Kiddie toys had been replaced with tape measures, mini screwdriver sets, penknives, flashlights and even ice scrapers. As boyfriends (and future husbands) joined the family for Christmas morning, they too opened stockings that would make a Brookstone salesman smile. Thirty years later, many of the small tools and gadgets we received are still in use at our house.
   John’s most memorable stocking stuffers came from a company called The Thomas Registry Catalog. The useful catalog sometimes referred to as ThomCat was a comprehensive listing of companies and products manufactured in the United States. Each year ThomCat would send John promotional and novelty items with the familiar ThomCat logo as thanks for purchasing the catalog.
   He didn’t appreciate the gesture thinking they could use the money in a better way – like charging less for the catalog. So he saved all of the items over a number of years with the intention of sending them back to the company in protest. That never happened.
   Instead, the Brownrigg kids and various son-in-laws received ThomCat promotional items in their stockings. There were umbrellas, barbeque aprons, belt buckles, pens, Frisbees, sunglasses, playing cards, and many other items emblazoned with the ThomCat logo. I have no recollection of what gifts were exchanged that year but everyone remembers it as the ThomCat Christmas.”
   The tradition of Christmas stockings is hard to trace but a popular legend says that St. Nicholas visited the home a poor family and placed gold coins in stockings they had hung to dry by the fireplace. Thus was born the tradition of placing stockings over the fireplace to be filled by St. Nick.
   Now that the kids are no longer “kids” and the days of Hot Wheels and Polly Pockets are gone, I no longer have to sneak in like St. Nicholas but I take the search for useful gadgets and tasty treats seriously.
   I have no idea what that those gadgets will be but I still have lots of time. You see…stocking stuffer procrastination is another tradition I inherited from my father in-law.

Television History Comes Alive On HOT

There was a time when NBC kept a card file listing every known television set owner. Each week the network sent out postcards to the owners listing the coming week’s programs and asking for comments on them.



The year was 1939 and television had been around for more than ten years but outside of New York City, it was unlikely that anyone saw one. Commercial network television was born in 1941 when NBC and CBS were granted licenses but World War II delayed the effort until the late 1940’s when network TV reached across the country. By long with ABC and the short lived DuMont Network, television was reaching millions of homes with original programs by 1951. The golden age of television had begun.


Sixty years later, two fans of that golden age are sharing their love of early television with local cable and digital TV subscribers. The station is appropriately called HOT-TV for the History of Television and airs on DISH at Channel 26 as well as digital channels 26.1, 31.3 and 50.4.


Joel Stevens, an advertising executive with Regional Media Solutions always wanted to be in the television business. He saw an opportunity when approached by his partner Fred Hutton, who had a collection of old television programs and movies that he wanted to share.


HOT-TV is more than re-runs of familiar classics like I Love Lucy and The Honeymooners. HOT’s programming includes shows that have rarely, if ever, been viewed by today’s viewers. These include early 1950’s shows such as I Married Joan, Sherlock Holmes, Mr. and Mrs. North, Ozzie and Harriett and My Little Margie. Vintage movies and cartoons fill in most of the weekly programs but the weekends are set aside for westerns. Fifties western serials like Tate - the one armed good guy, Kit Carson, and Gabby Hayes run alongside classic western movies.


A personal favorite airing on Hot-TV this month is a little known show called Life With Elizabeth that featured Betty White from 1953-55.


Looking beyond their obvious production flaws, Joel Stevens still prefers watching the old TV shows. “Because the shows were often filmed live and had no special effects, they needed to be well written and tight. Besides, I’m color blind,” he admitted.


“The response has been good in the three markets that HOT-TV is airing (Seattle, New York City and Dallas),” added Stevens. “It has surprised me that the appeal is across generations. Grandparents who remember the shows, especially the westerns, enjoy sharing them with kids.”


Fred Hutton, manager, operator and program director for HOT, picks the shows that air and personally owns many of the programs and movies.


“We are looking for shows and movies that are not carried on other local stations. Dallas-Fort Worth is such a large media market that the more common ‘vintage TV shows’ are always running somewhere.”


Hutton feels that viewers particularly enjoy the weekend westerns because many of them such as Annie Oakley and Range Rider were shot as Saturday morning kiddie shows. These are the shows they watched when TV’s first came into their homes.


For viewers like me that grew up watching TV in the 60’s and 70’s, the old shows offer many surprises. Many movie and TV stars got their start on the old shows and it’s fun to see Herman Munster (Fred Gwynne) as a cowboy outlaw or Colonel Binghamton (Joe Flynn) as a mad scientist.


“We get emails every day,” says Stevens, “showing appreciation for bringing back the old shows and movies. Some say ‘where have you been’ while others just offer suggestions for more shows. I guess everyone wants to be TV program director.”

A Casual Fan's Guide To Hockey

Now that the Allen Americans are in town, I watch a lot of hockey games. I don’t understand everything I see but I’m willing to learn. That’s why I called upon the Allen Americans director of business and hockey operations, Erik Adams, to help me and hopefully a few more folks out there to become better fans by answering some common hockey questions.



What are the rules regarding players fighting on the ice? When pushing and shoving leads into a fight; referees may allow the players to fight and let off some steam. Once a player is clearly being beaten, falls to the ice or is in a vulnerable position (shirt over their head for example) then the fight will be stopped. A player who intentionally starts a fight may be assessed an additional two minutes for instigation plus the five minute fighting penalty.


Why are broken hockey sticks left on the ice during play? Rules state that a player must release a stick immediately when it breaks, even if it breaks up at the handle. There is no stoppage of play though so the stick may get kicked around until there is a faceoff or timeout.


Why do goalies sway back and forth during the National Anthem? Players go through their warm up routine and once the adrenaline is running, it is hard to stand still. Goalies are ‘on their own island’ and often do things to stay loose and focused during the game like skating back and forth when play is at the other end of the ice.


In addition to the goalie, what are the five positions and what do they do? A team consists of three forwards and two defensemen. The forwards are classified as the left wing, right wing and center. The job of the forwards is to start the rush towards the goal and keep the puck moving that way. The defensemen’s role is to get the puck out of their own zone. The center also falls back to help on defense and handles most of the face-offs in the game.


Why do players keep going on and off the ice? Players are usually on the ice for about 40 seconds although that can stretch up to a few minutes in some cases. A ‘line’ of players will enter the ice and play for about 40 seconds before returning to the bench. The time may vary but during a 60 minute game, players are on the ice for an average of 20 minutes. NHL teams carry four lines of players while the CHL (Central Hockey League) teams have three lines.


How do face-offs work? Each player must stand outside the circle in the designated area. The visiting team’s player must put his stick on the ice first. Once the home team player’s stick touches the ice, the puck is dropped. If a player crosses into the circle, he is kicked out and replaced by another player. There is a lot of strategy being employed in the instant that the puck drops


What does the coach do during the game? Most of the coach’s work is done before the game and between periods when strategy and systems for the game are set up. Teams for penalty killing and power plays are set and lines are adjusted. They are not as involved during the game as a football coach, for example, but they are always breaking down good and bad plays and making notes of adjustments that need to be made. Like all athletic coaches, they constantly work to keep the players confident and mentally focused on the game.


Finally, what’s with the beards in hockey? Playoff beards started with the NY Islanders in the 80’s when the team chose not to shave until they lost a playoff series. Instead, they won four straight Stanley Cup titles. The tradition has caught on with many teams as a show of camaraderie and determination when the layoffs come around.


The Allen Americans currently hold first place in their division and play the second place Wichita Thunder tonight (Thursday) at 7:05 at the Allen Event Center.

A Military Career In A Paragraph

When it came to World War II, my father was not much of a nostalgic. If it weren’t for some yellowed papers and old photographs, there would be almost no record of his three and half years in the U.S. Army.


The credit for preserving his military record really goes to his future wife and my mother; Lt. Mary J. Lynch. Stored safely in her dresser were three envelopes filled with letters, photographs and official correspondence collected from their years in the Army from 1942-1946.


It is hard to say whether the stack of papers is what was important to her or just what survived the years. Some are literally marching orders while others are just memos written in military jargon. All of them are carbon copies of course.


A typical memorandum comes from the 12th General Hospital and it instructs the nurses to “pack your trunk lockers at once for shipment. Do not put anything in your trunk locker that you will need in the future as no one knows when this will be available to you. Pack in it everything not to be carried in your bedroll or on your person. Keep in your possession your gas mask and helmet.”


Two single documents that tell the whole story are their military separation papers or officially the Army Separation Qualification Record. My father’s states that: “Lt. William Carroll attended OCS (Officer Candidate School) at Fort Dix and was assigned to a Signal Air Warning Battalion. His unit was sent overseas to Oran in 1943 with heavy radar. The unit went through all North Africa campaigns, then through Italy and took part in the invasion of Southern France on D-Day. Unit moved to N. France and into Germany and was near Munich on V-E Day and returned to U.S. in Oct. 1945.”


The author of my mother’s separation papers was even more brief. “Lt. Mary Lynch was trained at Little Company of Mary Hospital in Evergreen Park, IL. She served as a general duty nurse in the Mediterranean, North Africa, and Rome-Arno campaigns.”


For all of the traveling and hardships and excitement, their entire military career was summarized into a paragraph by a clerk who probably typed thousands of similar carbon copy documents.


My favorite documents are the V-Mail letters that my father wrote to my mother as they traveled about North Africa and Italy. Working around the censors, the letters are written almost in code. “We are about 150 miles north of where I last saw you,” he says. “It looks like we are shipping out to one of two places and one of them is where you are now” and so on. Apparently no vital military secrets were divulged but they did keep in touch and marry after the war.


For those of us who never served in the military, it is easy to think of the military in large numbers and snippets from history books and TV news.


For those who did serve our country, I am sure it was much more of a personal experience full of memories both good and bad. They have their own letters and orders and separation papers that tell their story.


For the men and women in each one of those stories, we extend our thanks and appreciation as we celebrate Veterans Day.

Playing The Slots Ain't What It Used To Be

There were toys that every boy had like army men and Matchbox cars. Then there were toys that only a select few had and the rest of us dreamed about like gas powered airplanes and slot cars.

After years of slot car envy, I finally saved up and bought a used HO scale set when I was eleven. I had been “hired” by a retired teacher in the neighborhood to do outdoor chores such as mowing and raking. The money was good at $2 per hour so I couldn’t understand why my friend Gary would give up the job and pass it along to me.

As it turned out, he wasn’t giving me a job, he was getting rid of one. After two weeks of well supervised yard work, I was ready to pass the same thankless job onto another friend. I did leave with about $40 and quickly spent it on the slot car set.

My “new” set was made by Aurora in the early 1960’s and was sold to me by a 17 year-old neighborhood kid who drove his real car like a slot car. The cars and track and accessories were dumped in a large box but I was thrilled just to have a set for my own.

For those who are unfamiliar with slot car sets, the road to enjoyment could be paved with frustration. First, the track had to be built. Most layouts looked more like the high five interchange than Daytona because every single accessory and track in the box had to be used. Step two involved the tedious process of connecting and testing the tracks to eliminate dead spots. Finally, the cars had to be reassembled and cleaned and oiled before they could even complete a full lap.
Kids with ambitious dads had permanent track layouts that looked more like model train sets. My friend Gary and I settled for the basement floor with the constant threat of destruction by Duke, his German Shepard.

We spent countless hours playing with our slots car sets and devoted almost as much time building new track layouts. There was no Playstation or cable TV so slot cars could fill a long winter day better than any other toy in the house.

Many years later (but a few years too early), I bought a big slot car set for my son. He eventually grew into it and then quickly grew back out of it when he started driving his own car. It had been stored deep in the closet ever since -until last weekend.

In the name of research, I pulled out the box and set up the old slot cars one more time. My friend Barry joined me and we tinkered with the track and cars until everything was running smoothly. Then we sat back down and watched the football game and never really got back to it.
I realized that it never was about the competition. There was no neighborhood slot car champion when we were kids; we didn’t even keep score. The real fun for us was in the building and tinkering.

I packed up the slot cars tonight and placed them back into the closet next to the model trains. Like many things in that closet, I have no need for them but no desire to part with them either. It’s comforting just knowing they are in there – for research purposes of course.

Cardinal Red Trumps Yankee Pinstripes

There are two different scenarios that may have taken place by the time this column appears. The Texas Rangers will have won the World Series or the St. Louis Cardinals and the Rangers are preparing for a dramatic game seven. Either way it plays out, I win.

I have faithfully followed the hometown Rangers baseball team for years and enjoyed their rise out of mediocrity. I cheered them on through last year’s World Series and celebrated with each win in this year’s playoff rounds. The only team and I mean the only team that would test that allegiance is my team - the St. Louis Cardinals.

The sports pages are full of adjectives to describe the unlikely circumstances that led them to the National League Pennant so I won’t repeat them. Let’s just say that anyone who is truly a Cardinals fan should admit they were lucky to play a single game in October.

I admit that I rooted for the Cardinals last Sunday as I attended my first World Series game. Actually, it wasn’t much of a game at all for Cardinal fans. The Rangers were certainly favored to win the series and the momentum is heading towards that end but I will remain loyal to the team that killed the Yankees.

Growing up in the New York City area in the 60’s, loyalty to the pinstripes was an expectation. A few disillusioned kids rooted for the terrible New York Mets but the Yankees were king. They had played in 15 World Series over the previous 20 years and they were favored to win another one in 1964.

There were Yankees pitching everything from cars to Yoo Hoo I just wasn’t buying the whole Yankee thing but didn’t have an alternative yet.

I was eight years old and joined my classmates each afternoon as we ran home to watch the second half of the games that started around 2 p.m. I secretly tuned in to the 1967 World Series on a small transistor radio and my junior high teacher tuned in the game for the whole class in 1970. The Sisters of Charity were not as understanding when I was in third grade. They had us reciting Mother Seton poems while Bob Gibson was throwing pitches to Mickey Mantle.
The Cardinals won that ’64 World Series in seven games and earned my loyalty for life. Many years later when I moved to the Midwest I learned that a good portion of the country were Cardinal fans because their radio broadcasts reached from Minnesota to Texas. In New Jersey, however, you had to search hard to find a Cardinals fan.

As our hometown team, I have celebrated or suffered along with Texas Ranger fans since moving to Texas in 1995. It’s not like I was cheating on the Cardinals. The Rangers were an American League team and the odds of St. Louis and Texas ever crossing paths were nearly impossible.
Now that the impossible has occurred, I need to stick with my Yankee killers but I’ll be cheering that Rangers victory parade if (or when) it occurs. Is that wrong?

West Side Story Goes West

You know the hit songs and probably saw the award winning movie. You may even own the soundtrack but have you ever seen a stage production of West Side Story? Many critics rank it among the best American musicals of all time but the opportunities to see the production performed live have been few and far between.

That is why the opening of West Side Story at Fair Park Music Hall this week is such an opportunity for hard core musical fans and those who want to experience what they can only imagine on their television screen.

West Side Story was conceived by Jerome Robbins in 1949 when he brought the composer Leonard Bernstein and playwright Arthur Laurents together to modernize the story of Romeo and Juliet through a stage musical. The project was first called East Side Story and focused on the romance between a Jewish boy and Italian-Catholic girl set on New York City’s lower east side. The project floundered and was delayed for six years. By that time the storyline seemed dated and it was rewritten to reflect gang conflicts between Puerto Rican and Polish gangs on New York’s west side. A young lyricist named Stephen Sondheim was added to the team and the rest is history.

As a youngster I had no idea what the musical was about but the familiar red and black album sat in my parent’s stack of records. I would skip over the ballads (mushy songs) and drop the needle on sing-alongs like Gee Officer Krupke, America, the Jet Song and Cool. I eventually saw the movie starring Natalie Wood and made some sense out of the storyline. I’ve seen it many more times since then but caught my first live performance of West Side Story at Fair Park this week. It was amazing.

To understand why West Side Story was so big from the start, you have to consider the year 1957. Up to and including that year, musicals were happy sing-alongs that followed a standard formula. With the possible exception of Rogers and Hammerstein’s Oklahoma, musical theater was very predictable in the 50’s. West Side Story shared the spotlight in 1957 with The Music Man and while both are golden era musicals, they couldn’t be more different.

For starters, The Music Man is a musical with dance. West Side Story is a dance production made even better with a memorable score. The current national touring production that opened on Tuesday is an amazing display of dance from the big production numbers to the choreographed fight scenes. Numbers such as The Rumble could best be described as ballet with a switchblade.

Fans of the 1961 West Side Story movie won’t be disappointed and stage musical purists will find this current production to be an excellent revival of the original musical. Either way, it is memorable show to close out the Dallas Summer Musical season.

West Side Story is playing through October 23 at the Fair Park Music Hall as part of the Dallas Summer Musical series. The show is concurrent with the Texas State Fair so parking is a challenge but a ticket to the show is also good for admittance to the fair. For more information about tickets, visit www.dallassummermusicals.org or call 800-982-2787.

Godzilla: King Of The Monsters

It was late at night (at least 8 p.m.) and I had climbed the stairs into our third floor attic to get a better view. Even though Manhattan was about 12 miles away, I knew the danger would come from that direction so I looked to the east. I nervously scanned the horizon above the rooftops for the tell tale power line explosions but they never occurred. Godzilla did not emerge from the Hudson River that night and our neighborhood was safe – for now.

How a black and white movie about a radioactive dinosaur could keep me on guard duty escapes me now but logic isn’t needed with little kid fears. There was no monster in my closet as a kid - just a 164’ reptile trouncing across New Jersey.

The next day I sat in school occasionally glancing out the window to ensure that Godzilla wasn’t clearing traffic on the Garden State Parkway. I even devised a backup plan in case the monster destroyed the neighborhood between the school and my house. We would all stay in the school’s fallout shelter with the nuns until the sirens sounded.

Over the years Godzilla has become more of a camp joke but for a kid with an active imagination, Godzilla was a movie monster to be feared. The 1954 movie Gojira was the first and probably best Godzilla movie but the version most often seen by American kids was the 1956 classic Godzilla: King of the Monsters. Raymond Burr starred in the movie as Steve Martin, an ambitious reporter who comes face to face with beast who was awakened by nuclear testing. The big guy (Godzilla, not Burr) rises from Tokyo Bay to destroy the city with his radioactive breath.

Like many classic monster stories, Godzilla is meant to serve as a warning to humans to change their behavior or forces beyond their control will do it for them. The first movie was made less than ten years after Hiroshima so the theme of worldwide nuclear disaster wasn’t much of stretch.
It wasn’t power lines or secret weapons that killed the terrifying Godzilla, it was fame. The early movies were so popular in Japan that the Toho Movie Studios would crank out 15 more over the next twenty years. English versions were usually released about five years later with titles that frequently changed when released for U.S. television or video.

Each movie through the 1960’s made Godzilla more likeable and cartoonish. He morphed into a tree hugging, monster hating dinosaur. The world owes a great deal of gratitude to Godzilla for defeating Gidorah ( a genetically altered three-headed monster from the future), Mothra (a psychic caterpillar turned psychedelic moth) and Hedorah (a monster formed from the earth’s smog). He even fought King Kong and a robotic version of himself called MechaGodzilla.

Toho Studios celebrated Godzilla’s 30th anniversary with a sequel in 1984 which led to six more films through the 1990’s. I stumbled upon the 1992 Godzilla vs. Mothra movie on Showtime last week, which prompted me to write this column. The plot, which includes twin fairies from a lost civilization, has Godzilla killing Mothra’s ancient enemy Battra with his atomic breath blast. A grateful Mothra then flies to space to save the earth from an approaching meteor.

I cannot explain the entertainment value of watching a bad monster movie late at night but shortly after it ended I stepped outside and looked to the south. The power lines in Plano were intact and Allen was safe – for now.


A Guide to Godzilla Movies
1954 — Godzilla (Japan) / Godzilla, King of the Monsters (U.S.A., 1956)
1955 — Godzilla Raids Again
1962 — King Kong vs. Godzilla
1964 — Mothra vs. Godzilla
1964 — Ghidorah, the Three-Headed Monster
1965 — Invasion of Astro-Monster
1966 — Godzilla vs. the Sea Monster
1967 — Son of Godzilla
1968 — Destroy All Monsters
1969 — All Monsters Attack
1971 — Godzilla vs. Hedorah
1972 — Godzilla vs. Gigan
1973 — Godzilla vs. Megalon
1974 — Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla
1975 — Terror of Mechagodzilla
1984 — The Return of Godzilla
1989 — Godzilla vs. Biollante
1991 — Godzilla vs. King Ghidorah
1992 — Godzilla vs. Mothra
1993 — Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla II
1994 — Godzilla vs. Space Godzilla
1995 — Godzilla vs. Destoroyah
1999 — Godzilla 2000
2000 — Godzilla vs. Megaguirus
2001 — Godzilla, Mothra and King Ghidorah: Giant Monsters All-Out Attack
2002 — Godzilla Against Mechagodzilla
2003 — Godzilla: Tokyo S.O.S.
2004 — Godzilla: Final Wars

The World's Most Modern Car

I have always been proud that I can spot and identify old cars. The bumpers, the grills, the taillights all help separate a 55 from a 56 or a Dodge from a Plymouth. I thought I knew them all until I came upon Steve Matthew’s newest acquisition at the Foundation for Allen Schools Car Show in May.

Parked alongside the classics was a two tone 1950 Nash Statesman Custom Brougham. The car was so unusual and rare that nearly every visitor first asked “what is it?”

The Nash Motor Company, which merged in 1954 with Hudson to become American Motors, was still an independent car maker when the Statesman was introduced in 1949. Clearly influenced by the streamlined airplanes and locomotives of the day, the Statesman’s design was promoted as “the world’s most modern car.”

Matthews, who works as a director of governmental and public affairs for Atmos Energy, has owned at least 15 classic cars over the past 25 years but the Nash is special he admits.

“The car is unique in so many ways. Aside from the design, the car had many features that weren’t found on other cars of the era.”

These included a unibody design, a one piece curved windshield, a “uniscope” instrument cluster mounted on the steering wheel, a “weather-eye” heating and ventilation system and rear seats that resemble a train club car. The most unusual feature allows the front seats to fold backward turning the car into an overnight camper complete with mosquito netting and mattresses stored in the trunk.
Matthew’s car was first sold in Humboldt, Kansas where the original owner kept it until 1985. It passed through several hands before he purchased it sight unseen from a dealer in North Carolina. It was delivered to Allen with 55,000 original miles.

“I had recently sold my 1951 Cadillac and was looking for a new project,” says Matthews. I was looking for a Packard when I came upon the Nash, which was posted online from a classic car dealer I knew. I had spotted a 1951 Nash in 2005 but didn’t buy it. I waited five years for another one to appear.”

Nash sold about 110,000 Statesman models in 1950 and only 132 Broughams. Matthews is an active member of the Nash Auto Club and believes that his is the only one in existence. Because it is so rare, he finds it hard to place a price on it.

“The car cost about $1,800 in 1950 but today there is nothing to compare it to. I am more interested in the uniqueness of the car than the value.”

Matthew’s cars through the years demonstrate his philosophy that classic cars should be admired in their original condition and not customized. He also avoids the predictable classics such as the 57 Chevy because he wants cars that surprise and delight folks.

Among the cars he has restored since 1985 are 1956, 1958, 1963 and 1964 Chevrolets, two 1941 Cadillac’s, a 1956 and 1961 Chevy pickup, a 1957 Ford, 1954 Buick and a 1957 Pontiac.

If the unusual car looks familiar to baby boomers, they might think back to the old Superman television series. Lois Lane drove a Nash Rambler and Clark Kent drove a Nash-Healey sports car. Nash had a contract with the show and both good guys and bad guys drove the classic cars.
Matthew’s Nash Statesman rides more like a passenger plane than a speeding bullet as it cruises down the street and it is still turning heads at the age of 61, which is more than a few baby boomers can say.

Frozen Food Memories

Chicken nuggets and crinkle fries – that is my daughter’s contribution to the Carroll household. Along with her brother, the two hauled most of their valuable possessions to Lubbock last weekend. What they left in our empty nest was a freezer full of indigestion.

For years the kids have tagged along on trips to the grocery store. A quick trip to Lowe’s wouldn’t even get them off the couch but mention a food run and they are suddenly anxious to spend time with mom or dad. The trip would inevitably lead to the frozen food aisle and the negotiations would begin.
“I need some Hot Pockets for breakfast,” one would say. “I think we are also out of tater tots and these new seasoned extra crispy fries look great.”

Between the frozen pizza rolls and rock hard taquitos, there was always something frozen that we “needed” and for years I enabled that need.

I understand their craving for crinkle cut fries because I once filled my freezer with foods of minimal nutritional value. Banquet Pot Pies were a staple in my 1970’s college diet because they were cheap, smelled good when cooking and tasted – well – lousy but that wasn’t the point. Along with Kraft’s Macaroni and Cheese, a frugal college student could spend $10 a week on groceries
The irony of college eating was that I complained about dorm cafeteria food until I started eating pot pies several nights a week. Fancy eating in college was the 4-course TV dinner, a childhood favorite of mine as well.

“Go pick out frozen dinners for everyone,” my mother would say. I knew everyone’s preference – fried chicken for my mother and brother and Swiss steak for dad. Turkey dinners were my favorite even though I always burned my mouth on that boiling cranberry cobbler.

Just days before the kids shipped off to college, we announced that the kids must start clearing out the freezer and that night’s dinner would be a good start. It was a meal fit for a five year-old as we prepared a giant baking sheet of southern chicken patties, crispy fries, tater tots, corn dogs, fish sticks and chicken nuggets.

The smell of that baking smorgasbord was hard to describe but the meal was tolerable with a good dose of ketchup and honey. We never got back to the freezer food and the kids headed off to college leaving us with half opened corn dog boxes and hot pockets and just one Steak umm.
I freely admit that we miss the kids but it feels good to take back control of the meals (and the freezer). We tossed the kid’s frozen foods into the garbage tonight and cooked a nice steak on the grill. I would imagine our half empty freezer now being filled with frozen vegetables and Lean Cuisine meals. Still, somewhere underneath it all you might find a Hungry Man turkey dinner and one Steak Umm just in case of emergency.

When Do We Get To Relax?

For the first time in 14 years I will not be attending an Allen ISD meet the teacher night. I will not be anxious about my kid’s first day and I will not be standing in line at Office Depot on that first night. Instead I will stress over my kids driving to Lubbock and I will be hoping they checked the oil along the way.

With our daughter heading to Texas Tech for the first time and our son returning to Lubbock, the Carroll’s have entered new territory. Parents of college-age kids are now nodding their heads in agreement. I am no longer stressed about the teachers or the locker combination. I’m too busy stressing over things that are completely out of my control.

As Allen ISD’s public information director, I often speak with parents who are concerned about their children and school. How will my child find her way to class? Should I join them in the cafeteria on the first day? Do you have reserved parking spaces for kids at the high school (a favorite of mine)?
Every question is a good one because it’s our job as parents to be a little stressed and watch out for our own kids. Speaking with parents about school is easier now that my wife Ann and I have run the gamut from kindergarten to graduation. It’s not that simple with college.

The problem with sending kids to college out of town is that there is no one to call. I considered calling the Texas Tech public information office to see if the dorm room is carpeted but it just seemed a little trivial. Maybe I should ask if they have reserved parking spaces on campus for my kids – that would get a good laugh.

We dutifully purchased how to succeed in college books for each of the kids in the hopes that they would be better prepared. I doubt that either kid read them. In fact, my daughter packed her “how to” book this week admitting she hadn’t seen it since Christmas.

As parents we may not be ready but the kids are. Their advice book is now called Facebook and they are both better prepared to face college than I ever was both academically and socially.
Part of the credit must go to the Allen schools and a lot of great teachers. Along the way they pushed and challenged my kids in ways that no nagging parent could. Just watch a lazy ninth grader pop out of bed at 6:15 am for band practice and you see things more clearly.

When my kids were in fourth grade I worried about them being bullied for lunch money in middle school. It never happened. When they were in eighth grade I had a hard time imagining them succeeding in that big high school but they did. When they were in tenth grade I couldn’t imagine their rooms ever being clean again and they weren’t – at least until they left for college.

I asked a more experienced friend “when will I stop worrying about the kids and just relax?”
“Relax?,” he said. “Wait till they come home again looking for a job. Wait till you have planned a wedding. Wait till you’re expecting to be a grandparent. Should I continue?”

I think I’ll drop an email to that Texas Tech public information guy in the morning.

I-35 Attractions & Distractions Part 2

We began our tour of driving distractions along I-35 last week and pulled over in Italy, Texas for a kolache. This week we continue through Waco, home of the Dr. Pepper, Texas Rangers and Texas Sports Hall of Fame Museums as well as Health Camp Burgers and Shakes.

The Dr. Pepper Museum at Exit 335 is self-explanatory. It outlines the history of the world’s oldest major soft drink manufacturer from 1885 to the present. No one knows where the name Dr. Pepper came from but customers called out “pour me another Waco” in the early days.

Baseball enthusiasts would be disappointed to find the Texas Rangers Museum makes no mention of the 2011 World Series but the Texas Sports Hall of Fame does. Notable names in the Hall include: Bob Lilly, Babe Didrikson, Johnny Rutherford, and Sheryl Swoops. (Exit 335)

Just south of Waco at Exit 333 is the famous traffic circle and two long-time burger joints. The unusually named Health Camp burger stand opened in 1949 and still dispenses burgers, shakes and fries with a heavy dose of nostalgia for Baylor alums. Across the parking lot is the Elite Café which opened in downtown Waco in 1919. It moved to the busy traffic circle south of town in 1941 and has since been modernized. In 1941, it was the first Waco restaurant to be air conditioned which made it extremely popular with the locals. Elvis Presley made stops at both during his tours of Texas. Either burger joint is a great alternative to the standard highway fare along I-35. (333)

Sitting on the southern edge of Belton is the Bell County Exposition Center. The center resembles a nuclear missile silo with its silver dome but residents of Bell County know it as the home of the Texas Rodeo Cowboy Hall of Fame and numerous failed sports franchises. The Texas Bullets of the Professional Indoor Football League held on for ten years. Then the CenTex Barracudas came to town with the Indoor Football League and the Central Texas Stampede of the Western Professional Hockey League. (292)

The glowing eye on signs for Inner Space Cavern calls to motorists for miles before they reach Georgetown. The cave was discovered by workers with the Texas Highway Department in 1963 when I-35 was built. The cavern is like a prehistoric sinkhole that could be 90-100million years old which makes it older than the Czech Stop and Health Club. (259)

A modest building at Exit 220 in Buda says Anti Monkey Butt Corporation. A detailed description of the ailment that motorcyclists and bicyclists often suffer from is not needed here but their website says Anti Monkey Butt products will cure it. Just Google it. (220)

Long before the outlet malls took over, there was Ralph the Swimming Pig and Aquarena Springs in San Marcos. Land around the natural springs was developed in the 1920’s but the property hit its stride in the 1950s and 1960s when an amusement park was added. The Aquarena Springs website describes glass bottom boats, humans playing Tic-Tac-Toe against chickens and Ralph’s famous swine dive. At its peak 250,000 visitors stopped but hard times came and Texas State University purchased the whole property in1996. Today the amusements are gone but the glass bottom boats remain along with natural exhibits. By the way, the film Piranha was filmed there in 1978. (206)

There are so many more distractions along I-35 yet to be discovered. Send your favorites to flipside@tx.rr.com. In the meantime, happy motoring.

As The (Rotary) Wheel Turns

Across the country and around the world travelers will find small metal signs tacked to buildings and billboards that represent service club such as Kiwanis, Lions Club and Rotary. If you are not a member of a service club, it’s easy to ignore the signs that are often dented and faded. For many years, however, traveling businessmen and tourists have sought them out to locate meetings and connect with club members far and wide.

Each service club has its unique traditions and goals but they are all more similar than different. Millions of people around the world meet regularly in service clubs for fellowship and the desire to help others. They tackle problems such as eradicating polio or providing clean drinking water or conquering the causes of blindness. They also eat a lot of food, tell a lot of bad jokes and generally have a lot of fun.

One of Allen’s oldest service groups is the Allen Noon Rotary Club, which was chartered in 1978. Allen’s first club was the Jaycees who were formed in 1968. In fact, many of the early Rotary Club members were also part of the Allen Jaycees.

A fellow who called himself Orville Fudpucker was responsible for bringing Rotary to Allen. Orville, whose real name was Terry Dobbins, was chairman of the MLS (Multiple Listing Service) board in Plano and made it his personal goal to start up an Allen club. His Plano club sponsored the new Allen group and Orville attended almost every Allen meeting that first year.

He made contact with Charlie Claytor, an Allen homebuilder and Carl Gilliland, an insurance agent. Charlie’s son Mike was the club’s first president and Carl fell in as president-elect. In all, twenty-five members made up the charter group including familiar names such as ET Boon, Don Rodenbaugh, Newton Buckley, Mike Long, Don Brazeal, John Horn and John Pierce.

The club first met in the old one story cafeteria which sat on McDermott behind the old red brick school on Belmont. Both buildings were razed for construction of the new First Baptist Church in the late 1990’s.

Our lunches were catered by Tinos in Plano, according to Carl Gilliland “but we had to drive down to Plano and pick them up each week. Tino Trujillo was a big supporter of the Rotary Club and deserves some credit for helping us get on our feet financially.”

“We really had no clue what Rotary was when it started. We just listened to Terry (Dobbins) and started recruiting members,” said another charter member Buddy Camper.

Like most service clubs, the Rotary meeting space moved as the club grew and its needs changed. They first moved to St. Jude’s Catholic Church, then the First United Methodist Church, then the Allen City Hall courts building and Chase Oaks Golf Course. Today the club meets each Wednesday at noon at the Courtyard Marriott Hotel in Allen.

Each hour long meeting includes an informative program of about 30 minutes on almost any topic of interest to club members.

The club’s first program chairman, ET Boon, admitted that good programs in the early days were hard to come by. “We pulled in every elected official in the city and county and then brought in police and fire chiefs, football coaches and school administrators.”

One of the more memorable ones, according to Boon, was Billy Clayton, who was speaker of the house in Texas and running for governor. Several days later our Rotary speaker was indicted (but later acquitted) on bribery charges.

Charter members Carl Gilliland and Newton Buckley have remained with the Allen Noon Rotary Club for 33 years.

As Allen has grown, so have the number of service clubs. Our community now benefits from a morning and noon Rotary Club, a noon and evening Lions Club and a noon Kiwanis Club.
Despite the growth, the goal of Allen’s service clubs remains the same; to benefit the community and groan at corny jokes. Some things never change.

I-35 Attractions and Distractions Part One

Pulling out of my Allen driveway several weeks ago I found myself dreading the 300 mile drive (race) to San Antonio along I-35.

It’s difficult to say how many trips I’ve taken down I-35 but each time I seem to notice something strange or different. On this particular trip I finally took time to jot down just a few of the I-35 sights that fellow road warriors have passed by for years. The list is referenced by the mile markers that count down the distance to the highway’s end in Laredo.

Once I see the Dallas Zoo’s giraffe sculpture I know that Dallas traffic is behind me and the long haul begins. The statue is the tallest in Texas at 67.6’ and was built in 1997. It is no coincidence that the giraffe is 5” taller than Sam Houston’s monument which opened three years earlier. (425)
If your house stayed cool this past month, you can thank the folks at Owens-Corning and the massive plant in Waxahachie that produces fiberglass insulation. The company best known for its Pink Panther mascot, was founded in 1938 when Corning Glass and Owens Illinois joined forces to create glass fiber. (403)

Approaching exit 387 travelers spot one of the weirdest sights along the trip – Bruco the 240’ giant caterpillar. Bruco (Italian for caterpillar) is the headquarters for the Monolithic Dome Institute. The Institute was created by David South in 1975 to study alternatives for building construction. His company builds 100 monolithic domes each year which have been used for gymnasiums, churches and private homes across the United States and 52 countries. The Institute’s property on I-35 also includes 25 smaller dome home rental units. (387)

The exit also features an abandoned restaurant shaped like the Starship Enterprise. The place was called the Starship Pegasus Restaurant and featured roadside food, entertainment and photo opportunities with aliens all under, what else, a monolithic dome. (387)

Just far enough from Allen for a stretch break is Carl’s Corner. Originally owned by Carl Cornelius, the “town” became a favorite stop for truckers in the late 1980’s. Carl and his friend Willie Nelson co-founded a bio-fuel business in 2004 and turned the Carl’s Corner Truck Stop into Willie’s Place. The truck stop operated as a Willie Nelson museum, saloon, theater and headquarters for BioWillie fuel. Apparently the enterprise never made a profit and Willie’s Place declared bankruptcy. Travel Centers of America bought it at auction and have converted it into a modern Petro Truck Stop. The museum and theater are gone but the classic Carl’s Corner sign still invites travelers to stop in. (374)

The best way to ruin lunch in Waco is to stop for gas in West; the “Kolache Capital of Texas.” The Little Czech Bakery at the Czech Stop cranks out 200-600 kolaches a day and moves a fair amount of peanut brittle as well for 24 hours a day. My favorite Czech Stop memory was standing in line outside in the late November cold with Allen Eagle and Plano East football fans. Both teams had won big football playoff games earlier in Waco and fans needed some comfort food for the ride home. (353)

With almost 200 miles to go and so many more distractions, we will need to stop for some kolaches and continue our tour along I-35 in next week’s column.

Seventies Schlock For Sale

I passed a garage sale recently and one item caught my eye. It was a water bed frame and headboard. The sign said best offer and it was late in the day. I’m guessing that the husband will dutifully haul the massive frame back into the garage where it will sit for another decade.

Sixties memorabilia always catches my eye but I still find it hard to get nostalgic for seventies stuff. I don’t look for it and I often cringe when I see it being slightly embarrassed that I owned many of the tacky objects. Many others do not share that opinion and openly sell their seventies stuff on E-Bay. Here are just a few examples of seventies memorabilia that you too can own by visiting www.ebay.com.

What better way to make a seventies statement than in an American Motors Pacer. I found a 1977 hatchback with 99K in poor condition listed at only $550. It would make a great conversation piece even if it doesn’t run.
Music is important so bid on the new Sears Underdash 8-Track player. It is listed at $199 and has never been used says the owner. You will also need to stock up on music so consider the lot of twenty-four 8-track tapes and leatherette case that are listed at $7.85. Tapes include Foghat, BTO, Mountain and The Eagles.

If disco music is more your style, check out the DecoGlam vintage platform shoes (size 8) for $20. The red shoes will match the vinyl high waisted disco pants for $19.99 and the polyester atomic print disco shirt also for $19.99. An outlet on Long Island is selling vintage mood rings for $4.50 to complete the ensemble.

Decorating the hot tub room with seventies stuff is easy with Ebay. A six-pack of unopened Billy Beer is going for $17 and a 1979 Skylab Protective Helmet is $8.99 today. Go all the way and bid on an original Bell Telephone phone booth starting at $999. Shipping is not included. Calls are only ten cents.

Friends will be impressed or confused when you display your Dallas Tornado soccer pennant ($9.95) and even your kids will be amazed that you spent $225,000 on an original Roger Staubach rookie football card. Amazement may not be the first reaction you get from your wife however.
Speaking of collectible cards, you can re-buy your Jaws movie trading card collection (volume 1) from 1975 for only $1.99. A similar set of 1977 Star Wars trading cards start at $36.99. An original copy of the Saturday Night Fever lp in good condition is about $15 and an autographed photo of John Travolta from the movie Grease will set you back $199.

My favorite seventies item was a “Hard Side King Size Water Bed and Frame” with headboard, mirror and a black light. The heated bed is only $300 but the listing states that the owner will only deliver it within 20 miles of Billings, Montana.

How much will it cost to recreate the seventies in your house? Figure it out on a vintage Texas Instruments 2500 Calculator. The unit, which cost about $135 in 1972, has dropped in value to $99 in 2011.

Summer Daze Not Purple Haze

Before a summer job, before a driver’s license, before girls (sort of), was the summer of seventh grade. It was 1969 - the year of Woodstock and the summer of love. If it weren’t for the news coverage I would have missed them both. I did own a pair of button down purple hip hugger bell bottoms but that was as radical as it got in the Carroll household that summer.

My interest that summer was in filling hours of idle time with my friends playing games, eating bad food and wishing we were 17 years old (New Jersey’s painful driving age).

Lacking the ability to text my friends, I would wait until 9 a.m. to phone them because my mother insisted it was improper to call earlier. Eventually I would hook up with my two buddies Gary Costa and Bill Garrabrandt.

A typical day would start with a game of three-way stickball against the wall of a local school. The outcome was predictable because Bill always won but it filled the time which is a theme you will see repeated in this column.

In “the old days” eating lunch out with friends was never considered. Fresh cold cuts from a local deli on a Kaiser roll or the classic peanut butter and jelly on Wonder bread were standard lunches that could be hustled at any one of our houses. The three of us could polish off a half gallon of milk in one sitting although Tang was the drink of choice at the Costa home.

Our afternoon routine usually involved a trek for dessert. We might hit the local candy store where thirty cents could buy three Hershey bars. A more adventurous trip would be a bike ride to Howard Johnson’s restaurant which sat in a rest area along the Garden State Parkway. Ho Jo’s as we called it featured 28 flavors of ice cream and a weird mix of travellers and locals. It was a longer ride from home but it filled the time.

Now well fed, we would cruise the nearby Brookdale Park looking for girls. If we came upon a pack of girls (and they always travelled in packs) we would enchant them with our cycling abilities and charm as we rode bicycles with no hands and shouted at them. This mating ritual sometimes led to an invitation to hang out and fill the time until dinner.

None of our families ate dinner at the same time so we could scout the best meal or meals in advance. If Gary’s mother was cooking a great meal we would get ourselves invited. If we got excused from the table quickly, we could score a second dinner at my house an hour later and so on.

I was surrounded by NY Yankee fans so most evenings were spent in someone’s basement or front porch watching the game. A bag of Wise potato chips and a full bottle of Brookdale Soda each would get us through the ninth inning.

A ten o’clock curfew meant I rarely saw the end of any Yankee games because the Mets dominated the television in my house. I’d then finish off the day with a bowl of cereal and some Johnny Carson with the folks.

Then it was off to bed - satisfied that I had filled the time in more summer day.

Waiting For Walk-In Temperature

My swimming pool reached walk-in temperature this week. Walk-in is not a precise measurement but it’s easy to identify. If you walk into the pool and wince, shriek or balk after the second step then the pool is not ready. If you walk straight and say ahhh – you have reached it.

Living in Texas has certainly spoiled me. Only hot tubs reach walk-in temperatures “up north.” Swimming pools are reserved for the hopeful, the hearty and the foolish. For the first month of summer the hopeful owners clean out the dirt, leaves and occasional dead animals before filling their pools with icy cold tap water. The hearty ones then jump into the chilly but invigorating waters while the foolish ones wait until late August for the water to reach 75 degrees. The hopeful ones then drain the pool after Labor Day determined to use the pool more than five times next season and so on.

Growing up I never would have imagined that I would someday have a pool in the yard. Above ground pools were a luxury that only two of my friends had. The rest of us just waited and hoped we get an invite on hot summer afternoons.

The biggest obstacle wasn’t parents, it was older siblings. We would ride bikes across town to my friend Jack Granger’s house only to find an older brother and friends settled in. Like lions at the kill, sharing was not an option. We just hung around until they finished.

My other friend Steven only had younger sisters so the chances of getting a dip were better. The problem with Steven’s pool was the gang of kids who hung out there. They often combined my two biggest fears –diving and heights into an even more dangerous activity. Using a ladder, the kids would climb onto the garage roof and then leap from the roof into the 5’ swimming pool. The cannonball dive was the preferred technique although a few good ones would quickly drop the pool down to 4’ making it riskier for the last few kids. Most of our time though was spent playing Marco Polo or beach ball baseball.

Our family’s cooling off destination was called the East Hanover (NJ) Swim Club. It was modest 100 yards by 200 yards and could hold about 5,000 people on a busy day. The smell of crinkle cut French fries, chlorine and Coppertone permeated the air while sixties rock and roll thumped out of the jukebox. Today, a corporate park sits where we used to swim with no historical signs to mark the spot.

I never intended to own a pool in Allen but it sort of came with the house. For years our pool resembled a water amusement park with furious games of water basketball, diving competitions and underwater aerobics. Inflatable toys and diving sticks littered our yard and noodles surrounded the pool. Those years of “look at me-look at me” have now mellowed into the afternoon float and the evening dip.

I was reminded of those more hectic afternoons in the pool last week when the LeForte family of five came to visit. Out came the inflatables and the pool toys and I even heard “look at me” a few times. They only had to be reminded of a few pool rules: no running, no potato chips in the pool and please stay off of the garage roof.

It Looked Like a Classic To Me

It was a weak moment. I had been driving by it for several weeks on my way to Elkhart (Indiana) and barely slowed down. Then one day I stopped.
Assuming the price was out of my range, I walked up to the trailer and knocked on the flimsy door.
“How much for the old Buick?” I asked.

“I’m asking $400 and it’s in running condition,” he said. “You won’t find another one like it. Not much else I can tell you about it.”

His hard sell tactic worked and I bought myself a faded green 1953 Buick Special.

Let me insert a little background information here. I had owned a 1957 Chevy through college in the late 1970’s and wanted to relive that fun ten years later with this old Buick. It was one of several miscalculations I made in purchasing the roadside dream.

A 1953 Buick 4-door sedan weighs 4,315 pounds and is a 17.5’ long. Once it rumbled up to 55 mph the only thing that could stop it would be a 53 Cadillac or a train.

If the car seemed a little rough during the test drive, I failed to notice. After all it was a classic, a collectable. I might even drive it in the Mishawaka Fourth of July Parade someday.

I stopped for gas along the way home and was disappointed when the car wouldn’t restart. I called the previous owner who offered little sympathy and muttered something about flooding the engine.
I opened the hood and stared blankly at the engine. It was an inline or straight 8 engine that was massive by today’s standards. I pulled off the peculiar air filter and promptly spilled motor oil on the engine. It was my first experience with an oil bath air filter.

The car eventually started and I drove the behemoth home to show my wife. She was more bewildered than angry and I later agreed that calling her before buying the car may have been a good idea.

Over the next two weeks I came to realize that owning a 1953 Buick Special was not a good idea either. It smelled badly of motor oil that had been spilled on the old carpet. The exhaust system was exhausted and the brakes were shot. The car had great curb appeal – it just drove like a tank.
I swallowed my pride and parked the car out front on our country road. A few days later a gentleman and his son rolled away with a $300 bargain.

The lesson in all of this is that one man’s dream car may be another man’s nightmare. Leave the classic car restoration to the experts or at least to the guys with lots of tools in their garage.
Speaking of classic cars, the Foundation for Allen Schools hosts Allen’s fourth annual Customs and Classic Car Show this Saturday at the Village of Allen Shopping Center outside Dick’s Sporting Goods store.

The show, which is free to the public, is a drive-in event for custom and classic car owners who compete in numerous categories including a People’s Choice Award. Bring the family and cruise the car show on May 21 from 10 am – 2 pm (weather permitting).

The ABC's of 45's

Buried deep in my old stereo cabinet is a tattered red portfolio full of 45 rpm records. Each page is a sleeve that holds one record with a 3” hole to reveal a colorful label.

Thumbing through the book I can name almost every record without reading the labels because those labels are so familiar. The odds are good that orange and yellow swirls on a Capitol Record label means Beatles or Beach Boys. The solid red Columbia label belongs to my oldest record: The Battle of New Orleans by Johnny Horton. The record is completely unplayable but I can’t let it go.

The light blue pattern signaled the Rolling Stones on London records and the solid blue label with the white whale was undeniably Happy Together by the Turtles.

Something I never realized about record labels was how often they changed in the early days of rock and roll. The most striking example was Elvis Presley who began his career on the colorful Sun label but hit his stride with the black label of RCA Victor Records. RCA was one of the five major labels in the 50’s along Decca, Columbia, Capitol and Mercury Records.

Beyond the big ones were hundreds of small labels owned by companies that came and went and merged throughout the early 1960’s. Anyone who owned a stack of 45’s will remember some of the more familiar ones like Bell (Box Tops, Delfonics), Roulette (Tommy James), Dot (Pat Boone), and Scepter (BJ Thomas).

Teenage record buyers weren’t all that concerned about who owned what but many new labels in the 1960’s were derived from bigger companies. Columbia Records owned Colpix (later Colgems) the familiar label for The Monkees. Atlantic or Atco owned Stax Records and Kama Sutra Records (Lovin Spoonful) merged with Buddah (Melanie).

The 1960’s ended with many of the same big companies dominating record sales although Motown, MCA and the Beatles’ Apple Records gave them all a run for the money.

I didn’t start this column intending to lecture on record label history. I wanted to say that thumbing through the 45’s was like visiting with some old friends. These guys were played over and over and over again on a cheap phonograph that quickly gave them a scratchy background noise.
I asked for the record “album” one Christmas so that I could haul my collection of singles around to friend’s houses. We would sit and play take turns playing the new ones or if mom allowed, we would stack them on the grownup’s phonograph.

While the 45’s were gradually phased out by lps in the 1970’s we continued to have listening sessions in basements and attics and later dorm rooms. I can tell you where I was when I first heard many of the classic rock albums that now fill my IPOD.

Simply listening to a new recording is something that has been lost with the advent of digital music and headphones. Listening to a new song is more of a personal experience in earphones or the car although accessibility to music has never been greater.

My meager 45 rpm collection included 24 records. Today my IPOD has over 10,000 songs inside of it, including files for every 45 in that old collection. I’d love it if I could have some friends over and we could play them all. They just don’t seem to have the time. I understand though. According to I-Tunes, my collection is 23.1 days long.

Prom Drama Spells Proma

The tuxes have been ordered and the dresses fitted. Limo companies and florists are working overtime and openings at the hairdresser are hard to come by. It must mean that the Allen High School prom is approaching.

The anticipation and prom drama (let’s call it proma) reaches a fevered pitch in the days leading up to the prom each year. Face it, there is a lot of potential for disaster on a day that has such high expectations.

When you think about it, the prom is a great learning opportunity although kids certainly wouldn’t see it that way. It is a dry run for future class reunions and weddings and there are some good lessons to learn that mom and dad or schools can’t teach.

I learned a few lessons myself after attending two junior proms and two senior proms in my high school years. I share them now in the hopes that our prom-goers can learn from them.

Ask lots of questions before accepting a blind date for the prom. I attended a high school junior prom with a friend of a friend from another school. It was an awkward evening made even stranger by the large Polish family that greeted me at her home.

Seriously think twice about buying fashionable shoes. If you must wear platform shoes, borrow them since it is unlikely you will ever wear them again. I certainly didn’t.

The greater the number of couples in your group – the greater chance there will be proma. Two couples was the largest group I ever traveled with but Allen HS groups can exceed 20 people. That’s a lot of proma.

Don’t trust the guy at the tuxedo shop to tell you that you look great. That’s his job so get a second opinion. I chose yellow with a brown crushed velvet collar and wished I’d gone with the baby blue all evening.

If you borrow your dad’s car, stick to the planned driving route and clean out the car before returning it. We added an extra 60 miles on my father’s speedometer and never would have guessed he’d write down the mileage.

Getting pulled over for speeding isn’t cool – even if you’re wearing a tuxedo. Cruising 42 in a 35 mph zone with a carload of teenagers isn’t exactly risky behavior but it’s sure to attract the attention of police in the small town of Glen Ridge (NJ). Fortunately a written warning and well wishes for a great prom were all we received.

Buy a couple’s portrait and group picture at the prom. Thirty-seven years later I have two photos from prom nights – our portrait and group photo. If you plan to take your own photos, bring extra flash cubes and film cartridges.

Budget accordingly. It’s not your typical Saturday night date so bring an extra $3 for gas and $10 for dinner. Also keep a dime in your pocket for a phone call in case the car breaks down.
I hope this hard earned advice is helpful to prom goers this weekend and more importantly I hope everyone has a great proma-free prom.

Visiting Table Top Hockey Heaven

Halfway through the second period of last week’s Allen Americans game, a bunch of players got tangled up in the offensive corner. As I watched them push and kick and whack at the puck (and each other), a smile came to my face.

I was imagining a long metal rod protruding from behind the goal and a 12 year-old boy working that pole to free the puck from the corner. Another 12 year-old is pushing a metal rod at the other end of the ice trying to steal it back. Meanwhile, the players are just spinning in circles.

Despite the exciting game on the ice, my mind had wandered back to the days of playing Bobby Hull Hockey in my friend’s Gary’s basement. Bobby Hull Hockey was a table top hockey game that used rods to control players along a track in the “ice.” The playing surface was about 2’ x 3’ and included 5 players per team plus a goalie and a rolling puck.

I remember Gary calling me on his birthday to come over and play the shiny new game. A few kids had old hockey games with missing players and bent rods but a brand new game…well that could create a buzz in the whole neighborhood. The game lasted for years and filled many idle hours for us in high school.

Gary’s game came from the third generation of mechanical hockey games. The earliest model was built by Donald Munro in Toronto around 1933. The game was made of wood and was given as a Christmas present for his children at the time. Munro later built a small number of these wooden games for the Eaton's department store in Toronto. They were an instant success and stayed in production until 1955.

A plastic version was introduced in the early 1950’s and then the first “modern” version of the game was released by the Eagle Toy Company of Montreal, according to the fan website Table Hockey Heaven (www.tablehockeyheaven.com). Eagle Toys sold the metal games through the early 1960’s until the company was bought out by Coleco Toys in 1966. A big push for toy safety in 1971 spelled the end of the familiar tin men in favor of a mostly plastic game.

Like its cousin electric football, table hockey has never completely died out. The Table Hockey Heaven (THH) site lists over 60 tournaments in the U.S. and Canada for 2011 with the Stiga American Championships scheduled in late December. Stiga, a Swedish game manufacturer, is the official game of the NHL and only game to be used in most competitions although some U.S. tournaments allow classic games as well.

Serious fans of the sport on THH (and there appear to be many) have forums and online chats to discuss strategy and swap parts from old games. There are even music videos that feature close-up action and highlights.

No discussion of table hockey would be complete without mentioning bubble hockey games. These games were larger versions of the home games made for arcades. They were encased with a large plastic bubble or dome to keep the puck from getting lost or stolen. The most popular version made by Chexx in the 1980s recreated the Miracle on Ice between the U.S. and Russia.
With the realism of video games such as NHL 2011, Bobby Hull hockey is a dinosaur. Still, if I had that game today I am confident that it would only take a few phone calls to create a buzz in our neighborhood – at least among the fifty-somethings.

As for the Allen Americans, they won that game and the series and I look forward to seeing them again this weekend. How does Yellow Horn Table Top Hockey sound?

For Whom The Church Bell Tolls

I watched as several boys of about 9 years-old recently walked by the front of my house. One of them stopped, pulled out a phone and announced that his mother texted him that he has to go home. It didn’t surprise me that he had a cell phone since more and more youngsters carry phones. No, I was just surprised how convenient it was for mom to text message her kids.

My neighborhood in the 1960’s operated on two precise units of time measurement – the sun and the bells of St. Thomas The Apostle Church.

How much time kids got to play on school days was based on how fast they could get home, get changed out of the school uniform and meet back at the park which was adjacent to the school and church. The day’s activity would be based on the current sports season – football in the fall, basketball in the winter and so on. The pick-up games included all those kids who could get back to the playground before sides were picked. Late comers may or may not get into the game depending on their popularity and skills.

One big variable in the after school race to play was mom. Working mothers were still a novelty in our neighborhood so they were home each day and kids who hadn’t raked leaves or cleaned their room would be snared by moms. Even a 20 minute chore was enough to blow the whole afternoon. Games ended when the church bells rang at 5 or 6 o’clock. Picking a football squad required extra strategy when half the team might go home for an early dinner. The 6 o’clock dinner kids, including me, squeezed an extra hour of play but the rosters were limited.

The church bells rang every hour and could be heard for blocks away. When the bells chimed, I had 5 minutes to be home for dinner. It was that simple and I tested the system many times.

Sunset was the other limiting factor of course. Touch football games in the late fall would be played until the ball was almost invisible. Clever quarterbacks would toss the ball above the streetlights and it would reappear somewhere down the street. The local park called Vasser Field only had tennis court lights and their glow was just enough to dimly light a basketball court in the winter. There were only a few rules for after school play around the neighborhood. Listen for the bells, watch the sunset, stay clear of high schoolers who smoked cigarettes and hide if any nuns come by. Nuns were usually looking for a few strong men as they would say to carry groceries or move plants around the convent. Once asked by a nun there was no way a Catholic School boy could say no. An easier strategy was to hide in the wooden fort.

Unlike today’s hovering parents, mothers rarely came to Vasser Field. In fact, when one showed up we knew a kid was in trouble for something like missing a piano lesson or stealing fifty cents from his brother. Kids would walk right off second base and head towards the gate when their moms showed up – arguing was pointless.

One afternoon though, I got hurt playing football and there was my mother. Someone had texted her (just kidding) run home and told her I was hurt. I should have been embarrassed but instead I was grateful. Sometimes you just need mom.

The Price of Journalistic Freedom

The first Flipside Column appeared in this newspaper on March 30, 2007. My journalistic aspirations go back much further though. 

The first column I ever wrote appeared in the January 1970 issue of the Troop 22 Tooter. The Tooter was a publication that I wrote and published for Boy Scout Troop 22 in Bloomfield, New Jersey. Once a month I would pound the typewriter keys into the wax stencil and print the latest troop news. 

Each issue featured breaking news, merit badge tips, a scoutmaster’s corner and an editorial. Flipside readers are probably not surprised that I have a stack of Troop 22 Tooters stashed away in my filing cabinet next to The Camp Crier and Cold Turkey but I am getting ahead of myself. Alongside the Klondike Derby results and merit badge tips (“Home Repairs has only one requirement: need I say more.”) was my first column called Get It Together Guys. In the column I implored my fellow scouts to be prepared. “If a patrol leader fails to plan correctly for the canoe trip, the whole patrol goes hungry.” Frankly, I am surprised they didn’t publish that nugget of wisdom in the next edition of the Boy Scout Handbook. During the summer of 1972 I served as publisher and editor of The Camp Crier, the voice of Camp Christ The King in Blairstown, NJ. The mimeographed staff newsletter featured the lyrics of camp favorites like On Top of Spaghetti and jokes like this winner: “What did the hippie paper say to the pen? Write-on!” Captivated readers also learned that Cabin 8 was first in line for breakfast for the first time this summer and Sister Christine took two campers and a counselor to the Newton Hospital this week. My column in the one surviving issue of The Camp Crier offers tips for fighting off mosquitos which was a relevant topic in the Jersey woods. The third newspaper I was responsible for never bore my name. It was an underground newspaper called Cold Turkey that was distributed in 1974 among the young men of Essex Catholic High School in Newark, NJ. Cold Turkey was more of a silly satire piece than a newspaper. Instead of preaching anarchy or revolution, it offered record reviews, fake letters to the editor and weird school news. Freshmen were bribed with a free lunch to pass each issue out in the halls. “Dear Cold Turkey,” says one letter. “I am offended by your suggestion that Led Zeppelin IV is the best album ever. What about the new Osmond’s single or the greatest rocker ever, David Cassidy? – Signed Brother Dagwood, Principal.” My column in the spring of 1974 focused on the closing of our senior smoking section. It seems unbelievable by today’s standards but Essex seniors could smoke cigarettes in one section of the school cafeteria. The administration finally saw the error in that policy and moved the senior smoking section to the student parking lot. Journalists around the globe have been jailed for reporting the truth. My friend Jim and I received a few days of detention for reporting absolutely nothing important – a small price to pay for journalistic freedom. Thirty-seven years and hundreds of columns later, I am not sure if the quality of my columns has improved much but at least I can sign them with my real name.

My Old Kentucky Road Trip

I had a lot of time to think about cold weather last week. Locked up for most of four days by a crippling ice storm and thundersnow, I kept saying "it's not that bad."

Actually it was pretty bad and many Texans were unjustly mocked by out of towners from Pittsburgh and Green Bay for their reaction to the storm.
I ventured out each day and managed to get home without a dent but the odds were against me. It wasn't the first time I challenged those odds.

On a Sunday afternoon in January of 1978 I set out from Bloomfield, New Jersey for the 21-hour trek back to Murray, KY - my old Kentucky (college) home.

First let me explain a few things about my car. It was a faded green 1957 Chevy that came pre-dented and pre-rusted when I bought it two years earlier. The engine was smooth but the big car bounced along on worn shocks and ball joints that made it drift across the lanes. This forced the driver to constantly adjust the steering wheel to keep it aimed straight down the highway.

The flurries started about 20 miles into the trip but returning home would have been a defeat for this college senior. I was soon climbing hills in eastern Pennsylvania as the flurries turned to snow. I swung up north to the gritty town of Scranton to pick up a passenger and before we hit the next town south, the blizzard hit.

About the car again... the windshield wiper operated off of a vacuum pump that would lose pressure when the engine was stressed. In other words, accelerating up a hill would cause the wipers to stop until I released the gas pedal.

Facing near white out conditions, my passenger was leaning outside the window wiping the windshield with a snow brush while I slammed on the gas and let go intermittently. There was only 16 hours to go.

At the bottom of a long mountain hill outside of Wilkes Barre on Interstate 81, I did a 360 and fortunately struck nothing but snow. We shook it off and then caled it a day at the next exit. We stayed at a nearby relative's house and started out after sunrise for the other 917 miles.
The sun was shining but the temperature hovered near zero and the highway was covered with deep snow. We followed in the tracks of tractor trailers although we saw more than a few rolled on their side in the medians. Thirteen hours later we had travelled about 450 miles on snow covered roads. We called it a night in Columbus, Ohio.

One final word about the car - the floorboards in front had rusted out and only the original thin floor mats protected our feet from the cold air and moisture. The breezes were enough to numb the toes down there.

Tuesday morning we found the roads similar to our Texas roads last week - covered with ice. We rarely found dry pavement and crept 330 miles across the Western Kentucky Parkway in 10 hours - that's an average of 33 mph.

The 19-hour drive had taken 27 hours and still ranks as the toughest road trip I've ever endured.
As a footnote - we arrived in Murray, Kentucky just in time to enjoy several weeks of ice covered roads and cancelled classes. The winter of 1978 had just begun.