Sign In At The Door

Wandering around my hometown of Bloomfield, NJ, my son John and I found ourselves with time to kill. We cruised by my old grammar school and I impulsively slowed down.

“Let’s stop and see if someone will show us around,” I proposed. “I’m sure they remember me. It’s only been 41 years.”

From the outside, St. Thomas The Apostle School has not changed much since it was built in the 1940’s and certainly not since I attended school there in the 1960’s. Inside, we appropriately found ourselves in the principal’s office explaining that I was an alum and was hoping to get a tour of the school. The secretary left us alone as she looked for someone with more authority.

So here I was in the principal’s office half expecting the voice of my old stern principal Sr. Adrian to call out “Mr. Carroll – what brings you to my office today? Please sign the book.”

I glanced around the small office for “the black book,” a register of shame that visitors to the office signed. I later learned that the book had been retired many years before but a signature in the book guaranteed detention.

Instead of Sister Adrian, we were introduced to friendly Sister Joan, who had been doing God’s work as a teacher there since 1974. While I had graduated 8th grade four years before her arrival, she knew my name well. It wasn’t my reputation as a scholar or athlete at the school though – it was my mother whom she came to know over the years.

The first sign that I was getting old – make that really old – was that all of our teachers from the 1960’s were gone. Some quick math convinced me that Sr. Jean Jose would be 113 years old if she were still there. I was able to compute that in my head because Sr. Jean Jose whacked my knuckles with an old ruler to help improve my math skills. She would be proud that I learned my times tables and that my knuckles healed that summer.

As we walked up the narrow staircases I realized how familiar the school was – especially the top floor. Grades 6-8 were housed there and the little kids rarely ventured up there. There was one key exception called detention.

The assistant principal and chief enforcer was Sister Agnes, the 8th grade teacher. She held detention for those lucky enough to sign the black book that week. It was an intimidating experience for 3rd graders who sat alongside grizzled 8th graders in desks where their feet didn’t even touch the floor.

I would imagine that detention was about 45 minutes long but it seemed like hours. The only sound was the rustle of Sr. Agnes’ habit and rosaries as she walked around the room. The windows were opened wide to let in the sound of cheerful, law-abiding Catholic children playing outside.
Sister Agnes and I got to know each other well when she became my 8th grade teacher. We came to an understanding that I would be a compliant young man and she would not invite me to her weekly detention club. It worked.

I apologized to my son that there were no plaques honoring my accomplishments of eight years at STAS. But somewhere, in a musty old box in the storeroom, is a black book and oh the stories it could tell.

Tuning Into 77 WABC For The Top 100

Before IPOD playlists and MTV and classic rock, there was AM radio. For almost 20 years stations like KLIF in Dallas and WIBG in Philadelphia and WLS in Chicago dominated the listening habits of teenagers.

For millions of listeners in the greater New York City area, the two stations of choice for kids were WABC and WMCA. Like the scene from American Graffiti, radios in cars and on beaches might all be tuned to the same station as a single disc jockey like Wolfman Jack or Cousin Brucie rambled on.
I was right there with those millions of teenagers tuning every radio within reach to AM 77.

(Listen to WABC - 1967 Top 100)

My favorite day of the year for radio listening was December 26 because it signaled the end of non-stop Christmas music and the beginning of “the countdown.”

For a solid week, WABC would play the top radio hits of the year. The countdown would start at 100 and work its way down to number one and then start all over again. If you were a pop music fan, the countdown just sucked you in. If Incense and Peppermints is only the #18 super hit of the 1967, what could be better? There is no way that Judy in Disguise (With Glasses) came in at #17.
In the days before the Internet and instant information, there was no way to get the Top 100 list without first listening to hours of radio and the accompanying commercials. As a result, I found myself carrying a transistor radio and a crumpled piece of paper around the house. I numbered the page to 100 and scratched in the songs as they were announced.

The Top 100 was just an extension of the weekly Top 40 that was aired each Tuesday night. With the weekly excitement (at least in my house) of an American Idol final, the DJ would play songs from forty down to number one. It was big news in 1967 when Light My Fire jumped five places to push Windy out of first only to be bumped by Ode To Billy Joe two weeks later.

Top 40 radio was a format that began in 1954 at WTIX in New Orleans. The concept supposedly came from a radio station owner who kept hearing the same song played over and over on a jukebox. The owner trimmed the playlist of songs down to the ones determined most popular.
The bible for radio programmers was the Billboard Magazine Top 100 chart. The Billboard charts of pop songs started in 1955. Songs were rated based on actual sales nationwide and regional charts allowed regional bands to get more radio airplay.

Reaching #1 was every band’s dream but songs that stayed on the charts for an extended period were just as profitable. The Beatles, for example, had the most #1 hits (21) but Elvis Presley had the most charted records (107) compared to 48 for the Beatles. Interestingly, The Theme From a Summer Place by Percy Faith beat out the Beatles’ Hey Jude for the #1 song of the 60’s. The #1 charted song of 1970’s was surprisingly Debbie Boone’s You Light Up My Life.

If that last paragraph brought back fond memories instead of nightmares of an old statistics class, then look for a book called Top 40 Hits by Joel Whitburn.

There was a time when soul, rock and pop music all lived together on Am radio. How else could Sammy Davis Jr.’s The Candy Man, The Staple Singers’ I’ll Take You There and Neil Young’s Heart of Gold all hit #1 in 1972.

The rise of FM radio helped conquer and divide Top 40 AM radio in the 70’s but I still think back on those TOP 100 lists from the 60’s.

Share your comments and suggestions by emailing: flipside@tx.rr.com or visit the Flipside blog at http://flipsidecolumn.blogspot.com/

The Christmas Time Machine Is In Your Attic

The Christmas holiday is like a time machine. No matter how old we are, the holiday has a way of transporting us back in time. One reason is that we haul out a time capsule every year when the Christmas decorations appear.

It started with my family’s artificial Christmas tree. It magically grew thinner each year to the point where Charlie Brown would have been sympathetic. I was too young to remember it but we apparently enjoyed a silver tree lit with a rotating wheel of color in the late 50’s. The “new” tree lasted for at least 25 years and was finally retired long after we had left home.

Tree ornaments are a special part of Christmas decorating. Some survive generations while others get intentionally lost after only a single season. Our tree had an eclectic bunch or ornaments that were either passed down from grandparents or purchased when we were very young. My mother could tell a story about each one and I know my brother and I had favorites that we grabbed for first when tree trimming time came. Rarely were ornaments added to the collection in later years though.
The ornaments were carefully packed into several empty cases that once held 12 jars of Knott’s Berry Farm jelly. We knew Christmas was close when Aunt Maudie’s case of jelly arrived from California each year. Only a handful of ornaments and decorations from my childhood have survived but the familiar padded boxes are still in use 40 years later.

Still packed inside one of those cases is my mother’s favorite Christmas decoration - the Christmas Crèche or Nativity. All I know is that it was my grandmother’s and it got a prominent spot on the bookcase each year. I always imagined it as a valuable heirloom but it was probably purchased at Montgomery Wards in the 1950’s. I would offer to help set up the figurines each year hoping to create just the right effect. No matter how I positioned the wise men and the shepherds, my mother would patiently readjust them late at night to make the scene look more reverent and less like a sporting event.

Our living room was small and lacked a real fireplace so mom and dad were forced to rely on the magic of Santa and less on the “Night Before Christmas” scenario. Gifts appeared on Christmas morning under the tree but as we grew older Santa just dropped them on the two love seats nearby.
My memories from childhood may be foggy at times but I remember Christmas. I remember the pine scented candles and Santa cookie jar. I remember the popular Christmas songs that WABC radio played over and over and the four holly jolly Christmas albums my mother would pull out each year by Burl Ives, Rosemary Clooney, Frank Sinatra and Barbara Streisand. I remember the same holiday TV specials and the same holiday TV commercials (Santa riding a Norelco shaver for example) and of course every New Yorker remembers the WPIX Yule Log that burned each Christmas Eve.

It’s because we did the same things year after year (and probably because we got new toys) that my Christmas memories are so strong.

Once we were married and had our own children, we started new Christmas traditions but kept many of our own from childhood. I am sure our parents did the same and their parents and so on. I can’t imagine it any other way.

I hope my kids feel the same way in thirty years and I hope that those old Knott’s Berry Farm cases are still holding those familiar ornaments and Crèche figurines.
Have a wonderful Christmas!

Last Minute Christmas Advice

Dear Flip – I haven’t started my shopping yet and it’s Christmas Eve. You seem to have experience in last minute shopping. What would you suggest I buy for my family? Since time is short, I suggest you head to a large department store and only buy items that come pre-wrapped in a holiday box. For dad, try the 18-hole desktop executive golf course. Consider the perfume dispenser for mom and the Mp3 slippers for your sister. Good luck.

Dear Flip – We want to bring a gift for our friends tonight but hesitate because we don’t want to embarrass them if they didn’t get a gift for us. What should we do? Make the first move. Present the gifts to them at the door. This courteously gives the host time to wrap someone else’s gift or drive to CVS before they close.

Dear Flip – We have a tradition of opening one gift on Christmas Eve after church. Last year my little brother got to open a cool gift while I opened a sweater? Try this. Each family member can open one package or “steal” one that’s already been opened. This should lead to some quality family time.

Dear Mr. Side – I will get home from college at about 7 p.m. tonight. My old high school friends are having a really cool party tonight as well. How long do I need to stay at my parent’s house before I can leave for the party? There is a formula for calculating PQT (parent quality time). Take the number of weeks it has been since you were last home and multiply times five to get the proper number of minutes. For example, if you saw them at Thanksgiving, you need to make small talk for at least 20 minutes. Showers don’t qualify as parent quality time.

Dear Flip – My kids want Santa to bring them a laptop and a Wii and a bike. Santa is magical they say so he should be able to bring anything they ask for. Unfortunately my bank account is not magical. Any advice would be helpful. It’s about time you got some credit here. Tell them that mommy and daddy send money to Santa on April 15 every year. Based on how big that check is, Santa decides what he can bring. Show them the cancelled check from last year and explain that IRS stands for I (love) Rudolph & Santa.

Dear Flip – My brother and his wife are great people but they are lousy cooks. It’s our turn to go to their home for Christmas and we dread it. What would you do? Instead of the traditional hostess gift, bring a round roast with mashed potatoes and some mixed vegetables. Explain that you are both are on a strict diet.

Dr. Tim – I will cook for hours tomorrow while my family watches football all day. They will then devour the meal in 15 minutes and return to the TV room. Is there anything I can do? I would start with a 7 course meal that takes an hour to serve. Then I would set all of the DVR’s in the house to record the Little House On The Prairie holiday marathon.

Dear Flip – My sister is still angry that I melted her David Cassidy 45 rpm record in my EZ Bake Oven on Christmas almost forty years ago. Isn’t it time she let it go? You have one chance to put this conflict to rest. David Cassidy is appearing at the Nokia Theater on February 6 with Davey Jones of the Monkees. Go to the concert and buy a new 45 record for her at the souvenir stand.

Merry Christmas to our readers. You can find old Flipside columns at http://flipsidecolumn.blogspot.com. Send column suggestions and comments to flipside@tx.rr.com.

Hockey's Trio of Trouble Visits Allen

It seems unlikely that a movie about minor league hockey in the seventies would achieve cult status. It seems even more unlikely that the three goonish nerds who appeared in the movie are still celebrities today. But here they were at the Allen Event Center facing a long line of autograph seekers and well wishers.

The goons are The Hanson Brothers, a trio of trouble featured in the 1977 movie Slapshot that starred Paul Newman as player-coach of the Charlestown Chiefs. The Chiefs are a bad – make that really bad – minor league franchise from a depressed Pennsylvania steel town that finds a spark and wins a championship after three misfit brothers join the team. The quirks and fighting that the Hanson Brothers demonstrate in the movie have become legend in hockey arenas and locker rooms ever since.

The movie’s Hanson Brothers are actually two brothers named Steve and Jeff Carlson along with David Hanson. A third Carlson brother would have appeared in the movie but was called up to the Edmonton Oilers NHL team from the Johnstown (Pa) Jets, where all four of them were playing. Combined, the Hansons played a total of 34 years in professional hockey and brought those experiences to the movie.

The Charlestown Chiefs are a fictional team but their story is based on fact. The screenplay was written by Nancy Dowd, sister of Johnstown Jet player Ned Dowd, and incorporated many true stories and characters from the gritty minor league hockey circuit in New York State and Pennsylvania.

A fan favorite is a fight that breaks out between the brothers and their opponents before the game starts. It’s based on an actual 1970’s Jets playoff game where Steve, Jeff and Dave tangled with the Buffalo Norsemen during warm-ups over a racial slur. During the fight, a Buffalo player tried to escape into the stands only to be pushed back onto the ice by Jets fans.

According to a 2007 Sports Illustrated interview, Jeff Carlson once pounded a particularly annoying opponent on the head with the announcer’s microphone. “All the crowd could hear was poom, poom poom!,” he said.

Today the Hanson Brothers make about 25 celebrity appearances. Many of the appearances are fundraising events where the brothers have raised over $14 million for various charities over the past 30 years, according to Steve.

They received a warm reception as they dropped the puck at the November 19 Allen Americans game and graciously entertained several hundred fans who waited for autographs and photos.
“We have been fortunate that the movie has such longevity,” said Jeff. “Its popularity just keeps going and going and going.”

“We were hockey players and not actors when this all started,” added Steve. “Once it took off we needed to make a decision about a career in hockey or sign a movie contract. The two didn’t fit together so we went with the movie.”

The original Slap Shot movie is rated among the top sports comedies and led to two sequels over the years.

I think that Dave may have hit it on the head when he tried to explain the appeal of the movie. “The humor is pretty crude, the dialogue is often politically incorrect and it’s a violent movie.”

Fans of the movie Slap Shot will have no trouble finding more information on The Hanson Brothers in Wikipedia and favorite scenes are all out there on YouTube. Just don’t try the stunts at home!

Keeping A Straight Face At The Poker Palace

Very few games or toys from our childhood still capture our attention like a simple deck of cards.

Risk is way too much trouble and Sorry is sorry. When our kids were small we enjoyed family time and reliving our own childhood through games like Life and Parcheesi but I don’t miss them. I think I was happiest though when both of my kids learned to play cards.

My card playing experience goes back to first grade when my mother taught me to play Canasta – her favorite game. A few years later my father taught me his favorite game - Cribbage. By the time I reached high school I had found my favorite game – poker.

Weekend poker nights were a regular high school event in the 70’s for two reasons – we didn’t have video games and we didn’t have girlfriends. The next best thing was playing poker for hours while consuming large quantities of junk food.

Six or more guys would head upstairs to our attic (it’s a northern thing) carrying bags of chips and quarts of soda. Hours later, after redistributing our wealth, we would trudge three floors down trying not to wake my father who was often asleep in front of the television.

Poker was a very democratic activity in The Poker Palace, an elegant name given to my attic. Dealer’s choice was the rule which meant that the person dealing got to pick the game and the rules.

Traditionalists would call a game of 5-card stud with nothing wild. Others might go for an extended version of 7-card stud with deuces, jokers and one eyed jacks wild.

Pride was more important than losing a little money. Therefore people learned to play the various card games for a price and never asked questions. Of course some games were more expensive than others.

Nickel ante poker games such as Baseball and 7-card no peek forced players to keep paying to play long before they knew what cards they were holding.

Some games only involved three cards. One called 3-card Monte forced players to bet on a small hand with one wild card. The most dangerous game of the evening was called guts. Players held the cards above the table and when the dealer counted 1-2-3 guts, players either dropped the cards or held them. Everyone still holding cards had to match all of the money in the pool except for the winner. By far it was the most expensive and gutsy game of the night.

There was great satisfaction in winning at the Poker Palace but the financial rewards were slim. A lucky night might earn the winner 400 nickels but that’s only $20.

The stakes were much higher when I visited a real poker palace in Las Vegas many years later. I played two hands and walked away $20 lighter. I would rather lose 400 nickels in 3 hours than lose them in 3 minutes.

If I’ve tickled that urge in you to play poker, then head out tonight (Nov. 11) for the Allen Arts Alliance Casino Night. The Casino Night is part of the weekend activities surrounding the Tom Thumb Texas Stampede at the Allen Event Center.

For more information about the western style Casino Night or to order tickets call 972-727-7272 or visit www.texasstampede.org/events.

Rodeo Ready To Stampede Into Allen

It certainly was a pleasant surprise last week when I passed through Allen Station Park and came upon a herd of Texas longhorn.

Only two weeks ago I was exploring the possibility of switching careers and becoming a cattle rancher. Now here I was face to face with a 1,500 lb. steer. I just had to know more.

The herd of thirty longhorns had been transported to Allen from northwest Oklahoma that afternoon. They were in town to promote the Tom Thumb Texas Stampede which comes to the Allen Event Center on November 11-13.

After a good night’s rest, the longhorns would be driven north through the park into the Village of Allen ending at the Allen Event Center. Considering the alternative, it would be fair to say that the longhorns had a pretty good deal going on.

The longhorns came from the Chain Ranch in Woodward, OK and according to Livestock Weekly Magazine, many of them were spared from a trip to the slaughterhouse.

The ranch owner Wes Sanders picked up 44 steers at an auction and thought he could use them to promote a local rodeo. He outbid a local packing house for every one of them and brought them back to his ranch. Several days later he drove the herd 10 miles into Woodward and got statewide news coverage. That was in 1997. Today the Chain Ranch loans longhorn herds of all sizes (and their cowboys) to movie companies and communities for promotional cattle drives across the southwest.

“Our purpose in holding the cattle drive was to celebrate the Texas Stampede’s move to Allen,” explains Scott Farace, the Stampede’s vice president for business development. “It’s also about bringing a bit of Texas history back to the area. These are real longhorns and real cowboys and I think people enjoy that experience.”

Logistics are certainly an important part of driving a cattle herd through a city, according to Randy Lewallyn, director of operations.

“It looks harder than it is because longhorns are basically docile creatures. They are used to the noise and sounds of parade routes and the steers usually just need a nudge from the cowboys or the sound of whip to stay in line.”

The cattle drive, of course, is only the appetizer for the upcoming Texas Stampede. The main event will include bareback, saddle bronc riding, calf roping, barrel racing and bull riding.
Eric Swenson, a professional bareback bronc rider who recently placed 20th in world competition, compares the rodeo circuit to NASCAR.

“The professionals travel across the country during the rodeo season gaining points as they go. The season ends with the National Finals Rodeo (NFR) in Las Vegas each December.”
Attending a rodeo is so different than watching one on television, added Swenson. “It’s the sounds and the excitement of the crowd that can’t be experienced any other way.”

Allen has certainly opened its doors to the Texas Stampede, says John Wroten, executive director of the Stampede.

“We’ve been overwhelmed with the support from the city and the volunteers which means it will be a great event here in Allen.”

“The move to a smaller venue will actually help the Stampede,” added Wroten. Our costs compared to the American Airlines Center are much less and we have more flexibility to expand the event. For example, the western heritage festival on November 11-13 is a new addition to the Stampede.”
The free western heritage event will include a petting zoo, pony rides, goat roping and a western marketplace.

In addition to the festival and rodeo, the Stampede will host country stars Dierks Bentley on November 12 and Montgomery Gentry on November 13.
Profits from the Texas Stampede benefit charities in North Texas, particularly Children’s Medical Center.

For more information about the weekend events visit www.texasstampede.org or call the Allen Event Center.

In the meantime, dust off those boots and get ready to party western style till the cows (make that longhorns) come home.