(Talk of the Town photos courtesy of Susie Duncan Sexton) Above, Evan Bayh was a special guest at a 1990s Thomas Marshall dinner in Columbia City at the Whitley County 4-H Fairgrounds. From left is Roy Sexton as Thomas Marshall, Dennis Warnick, Evan Bayh and Don Sexton. Below, Evan Bayh stands for a photo with Roy Sexton in costume as Thomas Marshall.

By Susie Duncan Sexton

Succinctly stated, one is "damned if one does and damned if one doesn't" attempt to articulate formulas for reversal of the goofy decline of our nation. Evan Bayh, maybe some folks "hardly knew ye", but I met you 47 years ago during the final year of JFK's presidency. You cheerfully walked beside each of your parents clutching their hands while I stood waiting, as a starry-eyed Hoosier Girls' State participant, in a cafeteria line at Indiana University. We smiled at each other.

Decades hence, Senator Bayh and I have both aged. He is no longer eight years old, while my teen-aged years all but completely fade from memory.

Somewhat slightly "left of center" myself (Ain't THAT the truth?), I am saddened that you're exiting the political scene as you have made the donkey proud. Your star was on the ascendancy.

Gubernatorial, senatorial, nearly vice-presidential service to our country! Quite an accomplishment. Appearing to stand upon his own principles, Bayh received measured, short-lived praise some months ago as a reasonable politician refusing to buy whole-heartedly into his party's "party line". Soon, surprisingly, BAYH-partisan vultures huddled together to squawk, " Conflict of interest!" toward the vicinity of his gorgeous wife Susan's business associations. Evan became a man with no country, or at any rate, no party?

Bayh claims that extreme divisiveness, clouding our political climate, prompted his decision to abandon his senate seat. Is this a bold move after all? Should we take him at his word? Extremism certainly breeds extremism. Conservatives out-conservative one another these dark days. Progressive liberals appear to seek compromise at the cost of definitive action and live up--or down--to their reputations of gathering into a circle formation and shooting at themselves.

Personally (very), I sympathize with your current stance. As a tax-paying citizen, I exercise my free-speech-voice via letters-to-the-editor, greeted with either complete agreement and pleas for more OR a deafening silence OR snarky comments from "bloggy" individuals who sense my Democratic leaning and POUNCE like a duck on a June-bug! It's hardly worth the effort. It's a wash. Treading water. Although, I prefer to believe we must simply, appropriately, and in a non-partisan manner, challenge the status quo.

I have only one hope for this nonsensical earth-quake we Americans currently experience, for I do fear this "divide" might be our ultimate un-doing. Barack Obama, whom I often characterized as an appealing "paper doll", must transform into more of a "3-D" fellow and fix what NEEDS fixing. I appreciate his diplomacy, and I admire his mind. However, being our president, he ought to grow a spine. As comedian Bill Maher recently expressed to Larry King, "Barry's 'freshman' year has now concluded."

Senator Bayh, thank you for the wake-up call. If you're NOT demonstrating cowardice in fleeing from an agonizingly conflicted legislature into the arms of high-paying lobbyists, I shall applaud your choice to register your distaste for damaging partisanship gone wild. Hard to distinguish these days between those who actually care about the welfare of our nation--including their fellow countrymen--as opposed to those who pursue their own self-serving agendas.

"All for one and one for all!" "Yer either fer us or agin us!" In between, what we have here, folks, is known as an alarming chasm, not just an "Any Given Sunday" harmless pigskin skirmish. To compromise or not to compromise. Lunatic fringes rule? What a dilemma. Perhaps as news-casting days wear on, Senator Evan Bayh may emerge as a savvy iconoclast whom we refer to eventually as President Bayh? He recognized a problem, addressed it, and moved on, leaving us all a bit flabbergasted though sitting up and taking notice nevertheless. Come to think of it. We ARE in dire need of some kinda coach, umpire, or referee to wave those arms and blow that whistle!

A prayer, of the conservative-progressive-libertarian-"just folks" variety: Please remember to avoid shooting any and all messengers. You might be sorry in the morning.

Posted by jennifer321 at 01:54 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Curmudgeonly poet Robert Frost’s “road less traveled by” transformed the rest of my life at the precise moment I devoured his verses which spoke directly to my soul forevermore.  His collected works occupy an entire shelf in my personal library.

Amidst the clutter, trivial turmoil and aftermath of that blast referred to as Holiday Season 2009-2010, I milled amongst local humanity and became inspired by conversations, renewal of long-ago and far-away friendships, and thoughts of happy yesterdays.  Fun chats transpired with class-mate and mathematical wizard “kissin’ cousin” Brian Sherman, my former pupils Bruce Coyle and Cathy (Lemmon) Schrader and Valerie (Byer) Rouch and musician Phil Black and Betty (Phillips) Overdeer and first sympathetic superintendent Ralph Bailey, handsome “younger kid” Greg Fahl, and dry-witted Bill Webber whose mom Mildred worked with my dad at the Blue Bell factory for years and years.

Still reeling from a movie marathon featuring main crush Alec Baldwin, political activist George Clooney, a gymnastic Robert Downey, Jr. portraying a wired and emotional “basket-case” version of Sherlock Holmes, AND Daniel Day-Lewis channeling absurdist Italian movie director Federico Fellini, I fixated on the number “9”.  Daniel’s musical film, NINE, although a bit of a disappointment, continues to haunt me as I still wrestle with the title’s significance.  However, the goddesses who trigger artistic impulses total nine, my favorite number, and this I offer as my ninth installment of OLD TYPE WRITER.  Dames aplenty, perhaps nine significant ladies, drift in and out of Federico’s life…from his age of nine onward.  Oh, who knows?

Thus, I jotted notes onto the back-side of a Kroger’s receipt as we dined in Richard’s Restaurant recently, much as Abraham Lincoln did when he completed the “Gettysburg Address” writing his thoughts onto an envelope during one of his lengthy plane-rides?  (What’s wrong with that sentence?)  My muses struck…so enjoy the ride—and the story!

Life performs its swirling dance around all of us…we savor so very much of it and tend to survive by denying the bulk of its unpleasantness.

Rites of passage, commonly reserved for stories “of boys becoming men” whether at boarding schools or as savages ship-wrecked on islands or as rugby team players, happen to “All God’s Chillun” (borrowing that play title from Eugene O’Neill if his estate doesn’t object, but omitting the “…Got Wings” portion).         

                   ASSASSINATIONS!

                   VIET NAM CONFLICT!

                   Oxford cloth/Weejuns—

                   BOOMERS played—UN-ticked.

Apron-strings loosened and untied during the mid-sixties as I discovered myself wandering the campus of Ball State Teachers’ College, founded (not losted) by Muncie’s local native Hoosier inventors of canning jars.  My alarmingly miserable S.A.T. scores dictated that I possibly might withstand this collegiate experience more successfully than experimenting with those universities Indiana or Northwestern or Harvard OR my accompaniment of dream-boat Harry Lee Staley down south of Indianapolis to Wabash, an all-male school nestled in a wheatfield near Crawfordsville, where General Lew Wallace penned BEN-HUR.

My dad re-mortgaged the house, loaded up way too many shoe-boxes, sweaters, blazers, below the knee pleated plaid skirts, belted “007”-GET SMART-style trench coats, boots, an oversized “outer space” hair dryer 2001’s Keir Dullea would have envied, huge pink curlers, notebooks, tins filled with home-baked cookies, a type-writer, and me…drove 70 miles away from the house where I happily had wished to spend the REST of my existence…and dumped me at Wood Hall.  Thus, I majored in Speech and English as both academic disciplines were located within a huge brick building located directly across the street from my dormitory.  “Walk to work”—an old adage which held new meaning for me!

I vowed to make my family proud though home-sickness mercilessly attacked me precisely at that very second whence our 1961 partially-rusted out Pontiac pulled away from the desolate parking lot.  I vowed to avoid situations which required butting my mind against that cliquish-girl-gang mentality which had plagued my high school days yet found myself pledged to a sorority within one month’s time.  I resolutely vowed to ignore all males in order that I might return to my parents’ hearth and home with a bachelor’s of art/science diploma clasped under my arm rather than a M.R.S. degree. Rules of the road.

I learned a great deal as a co-ed.  For instance, eye-make-up applied with a heavy hand might produce more requests for “Coke-dates” than a girl could feasibly handle.  Such a trampy demeanor was never sanctioned by my sorority which instead encouraged frosted, streaked Jackie Kennedy–esque bouffant coiffures OR long blonde hair straightened by actually ironing one’s tresses.  Our signature “natural”, though a tad artificial, beauty regimen?  Achieved through Max Factor Pan-Stick slime slathered from hairline down to and including the neck area and translucent pale pink lipstick slightly hovering upon pouty lips, and a discreet touch of mascara or even false eye-lashes?  Yes. Allowed.  The  raccoon look, however, remained the hall-mark of that “other” competitive “band of sisters” whose suite bustled with energy/activity directly above ours on Monday evenings with secret hand-shakes and friendship circles and ritualistic candle-lit business meetings steered by a rudimentary knowledge of parliamentary procedure.

(A fashion side-note here:  until Jane Fonda introduced “panty-hose”--as a young newly-wed in the popular late sixties’ film BAREFOOT IN THE PARK--we college girls wore garter belts to hold up our nylons.  What a shame such a screwball comedy had not premiered earlier.   Ironically, years before, Clark Gable removed his shirt during IT HAPPENED ONE NIGHT, and startled audiences gasped that he was t-shirtless and bare-chested causing retail sales of men’s under-shirts to plummet.  Geesh, Jane, the convenience of panty hose might have caused far fewer incidences of tardiness to classes clear across campus?  “Stockings” stock would have soared off the charts. Where were you when we babes needed you?  Slacks, shorts, and jeans absolutely “verboten”, the exception involving Stagecraft Class consisting of scenery construction and heavy lifting. Ah, well.  My gratitude to Nancy Sinatra, though, for precipitating white go-go boots accompanied by fish-net stockings.  After parents simmered down, we “grown-up”co-eds continued to pursue our “ladies of the evening”/“these boots were made for walking” raunchy stylishness as we scuttled to our classes, some of us 70 miles from our hometowns.  So there!  Vogue Magazine alive and well within Muncie, Indiana, heart of the Mid-West.)

Sisterhood, certainly uplifting and generally jovial, often seemed conflicted.  “Do this. Don’t do that.”  Prior to initiation’s “flying up” rituals, at which time our delicately-billed pastel-hued pledge caps would be retired, we girls were indoctrinated into believing, for example, that true “ladies” never carried lit cigarettes while ambulatory.  However, bring on the entire football team for fun, French-kisses, and frolic?  (Oh, why not?)  My appraisal may elicit darts and arrows zinging my direction.  I apologize ahead of time to all who “organized” into sororities, fraternities…or teams?  (Note to Judy Langohr Ebeling:  Thank you for the loan of your beautiful diamond-and-pearl-studded sorority pin which I proudly wore until I purchased my own “scaled-down” version.)  Here I go again, off the “beaten path”.

My heart, though, beat most strongly for the professorial aspect central to the “halls of ivy”.  Fantasy romances numbered about seven, focusing upon English Profs mainly.  Blends of tweed jackets, pipes, genius mastery of British and American literature and also classical plays throughout the ages as well as Radio and Television Sciences—a killer combination obvious in the good Doctors MacGibbon and Powell and Bloom and Strother and Shepherd, etc.  This fascination with “thinkers” has never died, even though my first campus love, who provoked tremendous angst in my parents, hailed from Massapequa , New York and played rough and tumble soccer while boasting a hot-blooded Italian heritage.  I matriculated as an over-protected somewhat sequestered, cloistered nun/monk and graduated having progressed from lavaliered to pinned to engaged.  My brother-in-law referred to “freshman” Susie initially as the “Lavoris Kid” who gargled after every date but who eventually discovered that “bussing” qualified as a great hobby within the short time-span of four years.

Two quotes which I evoked as an under-graduate have served me well these many decades since:  Dean of Female Students, Miss Martha Wickham, soothed my troubled concerns while I served as Pan-Hellenic President, over-seeing all twelve sororities, with some amazing advice “to learn to live outside one’s self.”  Easier said than done!  An accidental compliment emanated from my officiously rigid sorority pledge trainer when I reported for a group photograph wearing the incorrect (uniform) blouse color:  “Ah, Duncan…always the individual!”  My claim to fame--or infamy-- intact!  ;D

Emerging from Ball State University which had matured from a mere college for teachers to full-blown contender, I carried with me great allegiance toward the world of academia, a 3.8 GPA, one diamond ring, THE John R. Emens Most Outstanding Senior plaque, my sorority’s Amy Burnham Onken award, the possibility of a graduate assistantship, a continual BLUES BROTHERS propensity for donning sunglasses at night, and appreciation for the wondrous patience of my parents.

“Good-bye” to bespectacled collegiate guys wearing skinny ties (no tacs!) and even skinnier pants and whose hair styles suggested the JFK part-on-the-side ring-a-ding-ding “fresh off the links OR the sailboat” ambience and who subscribed to Uncle Hugh Hefner’s PLAYBOY magazine monopoly simply “for the informative articles”!   “Farewell” to button-down collars, pretentiousness, and insular “dreamy dream land” lifestyles.  Apologies to Henry Mancini.

“Hello” to Whitley County’s eighth grade boys who swaggered, challenged, spit-balled, paper-wadded, schemed, and practiced irreverence at every damn turn.  Yep, I was the new quasi-feminist “teach” in town, all 115 pounds of naive, wet behind the ears, trusting innocence.  The ride of my life commenced only to arrive at a screeching halt nine months later—childbirth much easier than winning over kids whose parents thought they knew this hometown girl “back when” and announced that fact at our very first round of Monday parent-teacher consultations on “Back-to-School” night during the nuttiest September which I ever experienced.  The “natives were restless”!  Mr. Chips had nothing on me!

Complicating my “maiden voyage” or “year of living dangerously”, the “Hippie” movement filtered all the way from UC Berkeley, Kent State, and Haight-Ashbury to every Secondary Education-al institution dotting America’s landscapes from coast to coast and from North to South.  An anti-establishment anthem “Where Have All the Flowers Gone?”, though not completely comprehensible to teen-agers, nevertheless influenced school-room discipline or the lack thereof! What a time that was. Grammar rules, sentence diagramming and classical literature lost in the shuffle of translation. Peace, love…chaos!

However, Ada Smith saved my dignity by entering “Miss Duncan” in the Business and Professional Women’s Young Career Woman contest in South Bend where I presented a certifiably “impromptu” speech, incredibly winning first place ranking.  The judges requested that I replay my talk at that evening’s banquet.  I could not remember a word, improvised another sincere diatribe, and received a standing ovation?  Go figure.  Luckily for me, my wonderful eighth graders supplied me with enough sometimes hair-raising experiences that I could regale audiences for the rest of my life?  Thanks for the memories, kids!

I now revere and respect the meaningful lessons which those students as well as empathetic, enthusiastic colleagues Dave Heinbaugh, Helen Morris, Ron Myer, Pat Reed, Margo Langohr, Grace Hurtt, and my own fabulous eighth-grade English teacher Mary Jane Lesh (who inspired my future “career” choice during my junior high days in that very same building) taught me as together we embarked upon my life-time of teaching…and learning… inside and outside the perimeters of traditional class-rooms.  Frisky shenanigans of those “boys and girls” I lovingly refer to as “the Brief-Case Gang”, as well as my cluelessness, remain legendary, and my charges currently Facebook back and forth with their former educator.  We reminisce in great good humor, notwithstanding that my maiden name changed from “Let’s see what tricks we can pull on Language Arts schoolmarm  Miss Duncan today” to “Tee hee, Miss Duncan got married over Christmas break…and just guess what her name is now?”  Installed by our school custodian, a revised name-plate poised above the old wooden door of Room 28 read: “Mrs. SEXton”! The parlor games started anew!

POSTSCRIPT (though Prequel?):  Thanks to navigating a myriad “coming of age” roads “less traveled by”, I am a rather happy and hippy “Hippie” myself at this late date and remain true to my nature.  My choice “…has made all the difference.”  Perhaps, that “good fences make good neighbors” poet might congratulate me as he simultaneously forgives my mother her frenzied retro-indiscretion of once mis-placing our habitually purchased T.V. GUIDE magazine while she  sorted through our Friday-night-shopping-at-downtown-Kroger’s groceries, freshly lugged into the kitchen.  Eventually, we found our weekly edition for January of 1961…“Dewey decimaled” within the refrigerator’s freezer section…so that the hour of JFK’s televised inaugural ceremony would not be missed.  “The Gift Outright”!  How appropriate.  That iconic gentleman of letters, New Englander Robert Frost born in San Francisco, graced the cover.  Only in the Duncan household!   FROST found!  Filed in the freezer! 

Posted by jennifer321 at 08:25 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Facebook’s “applications” run the gamut from Mafia Wars and Texas Hold ‘Em through  responses to provocative quizzes resulting in “totally accurate” personal profiles all the way to exchanging of mixed drinks, pumping bling-blinged-up hearts, cuddly stuffed toy animals, smiles, hugs, or pearls of wisdom.

In the wee hours of the morning, not one of us FB enthusiasts rises above gleeful participation in the wiles, whimsy, or temptations which Facebook’s “playland” offers.  Silly.  Fun.  Surprising.  Addictive. 

One of these efforts blossomed into incredibility.  No, not that I may have been Mahatma Gandhi in a past life nor that my personality mimics Sheriff Andy Taylor’s?   “LIST FIVE FAMOUS PEOPLE YOU HAVE MET.”  Hesitatingly and with some impressive effort, I recorded tiny man Billy Barty with whom I danced because once I rivaled his height of three feet—of course, I was four years old at that magic time.  Band leader Spike Jones watched from the stage as Billy hustled into the audience to choose me as his partner.  So, the first two blanks were easy filler-inners. 

Ah, Robert Young, who starred on “Father Knows Best” every Wednesday evening, passed by our family, pedestrian style, as all of us ambled along the Chicago sidewalk outside Marshall Field’s Department Store on a sunny afternoon.  “Hey, how ya doin’, sir?” Daddy inquired of a passer-by in the windy city of “big shoulders”!  Mother, sister Sarah and I asked whom he had just greeted.  He reached, grasped, struggled for the name, “Oh, you know…uh…uh…FATHER KNOWS BEST?”  “ROBERT YOUNG?” we squealed as we rapidly pivoted to pursue this “beyond popular” television and FILM star for a full two blocks, noticing the patches on his sport-coated elbows, his signature look for certain.  Pigeon flocks, however, congregated and slowed us to a phobic halt as Mr. Young became tinier and tinier, dissolving somewhere into the far distant horizon.

President Lyndon Johnson and Ronald Reagan rounded out my facebook response, vice-presidential hopeful and long, tall Texan Lyndon having appeared at a local Democratic Fish-Fry Fund-Raiser at our 4-H Pavilion in 1960 and Ronnie featured as the main speaker at a 1983 PTA convention, immediately following his encounter with an assassin-wannabe only one month earlier.  We ladies left our hand-bags in the huge lobby of the auditorium as a security measure in order to ogle and to listen to the bullet-proof-vested movie star/president. 

Ten-year-old “young author” Roy, who had won that trip to New Mexico in order to read aloud for the pleasure of conventioneers his RAGGEDY ANDY’S TOUR OF THE U.S.A., spotted official White House reporter Sam Donaldson standing agitatedly in a lengthy ticket-line at the Albuquerque Airport and snapped his picture, prior to our boarding a plane only to be seated beside a secret service agent who resembled Pat Boone.  This affable, rather surreptitious gentleman never frisked nor disarmed Roy of his newly purchased, official, copiously feathered, sharp Indian spear souvenir which the three of us straddled throughout the journey to our next stop, Denver . That fellow turned out to be quite “legit” as he eventually hand-delivered little Roy’s prize-winning essay to President Reagan who personally wrote a tremendous “thank you” note upon a glossy photograph which arrived in the mail the very week my dad, Roy’s beloved grand-pa and namesake, died.

Thus, six celebrities readily at my beck and call.  Suddenly flood-gates opened:

Song and dance girl Mitzi Gaynor; a temper-tantrum throwing John Davidson; an unfunny Bob Newhart; a hilarious Pete Barbutti;  character-actor-and-Grandpa of the Waltons--Will Geer portraying Robert Frost; Eric Sevareid; Helen Hayes whom I served tea; Fredric March and wife Florence Eldridge; Count Basie; John Carradine and Shepherd Strudwick and Duncan Reynaldo (the latter in full regalia as the jingling, sombrero-ed, over-dressed CISCO KID!)--all three actors at our downtown Walgreen’s Drugstore after Sunday morning church services.

Incredibly, as a sixteen-year-old apprentice at Warsaw ’s Wagon Wheel Playhouse, daily “hobnobbing” with McLean Stevenson filled an entire summer vacation.  “Mac” later achieved his greatest fame as a substitute host for Johnny Carson’s TONIGHT SHOW, portraying Doris Day’s boss on her seventies’ sit-com…and most notably as an integral player on the MASH television series—Lt. Colonel Henry Blake!

More gloriously glittering souls glided through my percolating mind: Ossie Davis (whose character’s name in his original Broadway play, PURLIE VICTORIOUS, became the name of our beloved first shelter dog acquired during our third year of marriage); Donald O’Conner (star of LITTLE ME!); Forrest Tucker as THE MUSIC MAN; James Whitmore portraying Will Rogers; quasi-idol of fifties’ teens, Tommy Sands (Sinatra’s son-in-law for ten minutes); Ray Romano; Alex Haley; George Plimpton; director John Sayles, John Cusack, Charlie Sheen on the set of EIGHT MEN OUT; jazz singer/riffer Bobbie McFerrin; unforgettable, wholesome, dreamy Van Johnson starring as Murray in A THOUSAND CLOWNS, the most poignant and undoubtedly funniest Broadway play ever written!

Celebrity sightings galore exploded within my recollections:  Bob Hope (special guest appearance when the War Memorial Coliseum opened in very early fifties’ Fort Wayne—first shuttle bus I ever rode all squished together with frantic humanity, and my dad nearly came to fisticuffs with a bullying, pushy fan); Marilyn Maxwell; gorgeous and sublimely talented Calypso-King Harry Belafonte at the Detroit Opera House; Francis Sternhagen with whom I chopped onions and who recently starred in that Julia Childs movie alongside Meryl Streep; Tom Bosley (as Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia); Crystal Gayle; Lou Rawls; Johnny Mathis; Michael Feinstein; the lead singer and creator of Four Bitchin’ Babes in solo concert; eight-year-old Evan Bayh walking tentatively and shyly  between his parents Marvella and Birch while holding their hands…(and wearing a formal dinner jacket and short pants!); pop singer Linda Eder; June Allyson and her daughter; and possibly, reclusive Greta Garbo in sun glasses and scarf maybe approximately17 times while we spent three days in downtown New York City.  ;D

Oh, the Harlem Globe Trotters featuring Meadowlark Lemon.  An ancient Jerry Lewis. Jack Nicklaus. Gary Player. Bill Clinton. Just missed Dyan Cannon who skipped a matinee of HOW TO SUCCEED IN BUSINESS WITHOUT REALLY TRYING to marry …. CARY GRANT!  And a local legend who cured me of tonsillitis on Christmas Day the very year I received the walking, blinking doll of my dreams as well as my home-permed “TONI” (secretly dressed by next-door seamstress Aunt Lellie) and Dick Tracy’s newborn daughter “BONNIE BRAIDS” whose long flaxen hair could be tugged from two holes on either side of her smiling, rubbery face.  Realizing I needed to “mother” three new malleable “children”, Dr. John (Langohr) met my dad and droopy, sniffly me at the Linvill clinic, where the good doctor stethoscoped, tongue compressed, poured medicine down my throat, inoculated and, thus, facilitated my reunion with my new miniature family waiting, patiently and rather non-animatedly, beneath the live, decorated pine-tree branches for my return to our cozy living room.

Posted by jennifer321 at 09:14 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

But, hey, what to my celebrity-star-struck eyes should appear? 

My most beloved childhood “hero” with or without his deer!

Twas 1950, I saw ole Santy trapped in our upstairs.

No, not at Wolf & Dessauer’s holding kids singly or in pairs.

Locked inside our only bathroom donning his Kris Kringle clothes,

Into the hall-way he walked! Boot by boot, down the steps he goes!

I crept ‘long behind this chap who left through our green-wreathed front door.

Why, Mama, is Mr. Claus leaving us now?  Whatever for?

‘Twas “our little secret” she shared as S.C. moved outta sight:

“He’s headed downtown for ALL the town’s kids—so shout out, ‘Good Night!’”

Whether you believe this tale or not, Father Christmas dressed here

Once upon a time, then headed outside to spread festive cheer.

Visit the tiny crimson house on the courthouse lawn—you’ll see

That happy fellow who once stopped at our house and winked at me.

I personally knew this “Ole Santy” 37 years.

His specialty?  Gifts of Wrangler jeans to little local dears!

“Merry Christmas to all…and to all a good night,” from THE OLD TYPE WRITER!

Posted by jennifer321 at 09:01 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

While "big" sister Shirley busied her petite self raising three kids at her Thorncreek Township farm, "Aunt" Sarah and "Aunt" Susie remained at home in town lovingly clipping out paper dolls, replicas of Ava Gardner, Debbie Reynolds, Betty Grable, Liz Taylor, and a gigantic Esther Williams. 

The crinkly wardrobe of that Million Dollar Mermaid consisted of tabbed bathing suits designed by some person even zanier than an Oleg Cassini/Salvador Dali type. All of our cardboard movie stars remained flattened and lifeless in booklets, purchased from Murphy's dimestore in Fort Wayne or Raupfer's five and dime in downtown Columbia City, until we freed them with our scissors, dressed them and marched those beauties all about the house, either re-enacting our favorite films or manipulating the tiny celebrities into enjoying traditional family lives as neighbors to each other in far-away Beverly Hills, totally unconcerned if huge 10 inch Esther married diminutive Gordon MacRae or if Debbie hooked up with Desi Arnaz. The Lucille Ball and Shirley Jones dolls, not as pretty, would simply have to remain in their folders.  We played with the cut-outs we were dealt. 

Sarah and I also sang along with our 78 RPM breakable records and became an instant trio with either Kitty Kallen, Kaye Starr, Patti Page, or Gogi Grant.  Ah, "The Wayward Wind ", "The Wheel of Fortune", "How Much is That Doggie in the Window?", or "Have You Talked to the Man Upstairs?"  We transformed young Johnny Mathis, a 45 RPM crooner requiring a "spindle", into an Eartha Kitt torch singer by either slowing him down to 33 RPM or speeding him up; hmmmmmm, today, I'd have to experiment to recapture the crazy result of that feat of juvenile engineering.

I emulated Sarah always, even nagging to attend Camp Whitley, which would entail forfeiting part of my summer fun, immersed in my world of miniature cinematic stars and phonograph songbirds. 

Versatile, athletic Sarah survived several summers of camp life; for me, once was enough!  Riflery and archery?  Potato sack races?  Rowboating?  Spooky night-time TInkham's Woods tales 'round an eerie camp-fire?  Bunk beds?  Outdoor toilets?  Oh, please. However, Jane Sievers and I, sans life jackets, drifted away, after boarding a flimsy canoe as if we were a couple of  irresponsible Indian maidens, headed toward the core of the very deep "whatever-it's-called" lake, the focal point of that scenic rustic site.  (Perhaps this body of water should be renamed "Lake Stupid" in our honor to commemorate our ordeal?) 

We over-eager adventurers had forgotten to inquire of one another if either of us possessed a clue how to paddle a boat.  Two little non-swimmer girls hovered dead center over the shark-infested deepest depths of the Atlantic Ocean, crying and squealing, barely able to concentrate on that "dot" known as counselor Linda Gates, miles back ashore, as she frantically mimicked and pantomimed extemporaneous rowing techniques from the distant pier located somehwere near New Jersey. 

Searching through the annals of all of literature, only Hoosier author Theodore Dreiser presented such a comparably hair-raising moment via his novel An American Tragedy. However, during that longest week of my life, Director (as in "Camp") Arthur Lloyd discovered me, the next UN-squeaky-voiced version of Teresa Brewer (surely she herself the precursor to Bjork!) as I sang "Wouldn't Anybody Care to Meet a Sweet Old-Fashioned Girl?" in Tuesday's impromptu talent contest. Mr. Lloyd requested that I entertain all of the returning parents during the final program with a reprise-encore kinda thingie during "take-the-sunburned-kids-back-home" Saturday.  The birth of my brief, checkered singing career.  Marjorie Morningstar, move over!

School concerts, ladies' clubs, Sunday church services, Northern Indiana School Band Orchestra and Vocal Association

(NISBOVA!) competitions, high school and college and Wagon Wheel Summer Theatre musicals, 4-H programs, and countless weddings...I was everywhere, like it or not!  I achingly endured exclusion from our junior high class's "Girls' Sextette", a group-name which sounded a bit risque' but indeed denoted two sopranos, two altos, and two contraltos (or mezzo-sopranos; take your pick!) all blended together to produce sex...whoops, translation of the Latin here, six female songstresses. 

Obviously, those inventive students did not qualify as "the WE of Me"-- with the exception of empathetic soprano Mary Johnson--so I continued my F. Jasmine Adams fantasy that I never might become a Member of the Wedding. 

Carson McCullers nailed my social skills in her famous play. Thus, my solo engagements began in earnest, with the assistance of my voice teacher Miss Mary Dowell and accompaniment by pianists such as peers Richard Gall and Michael Rush or grown-ups Edwin Meitzler and Kenneth Growcock. Mr. Growcock, once featured with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, attempted to instruct me in the wiles and ways of piano performance or "tickling the ivories", but all involved agreed life would be happier if he would ripple the keys while I "chanteused", consistently billed as "that kid who SINGS at piano recitals."

Wedding singing figured predominantly during my Jeanette MacDonald phase, starting with the musical version of "The Lord's Prayer" on a sunny, "June-Bride" kind of afternoon; recently, I had turned fourteen. My sister Sarah and her Catholic-Youngstown-Ohio-Indiana-University-football-star-husband-to-be Mac knelt in front of me as I looked down upon them from my choir loft status.  "Our Father which art in heaven, hallowed be Thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done....", and my tears welled up and my sobs interspersed with the the lyrics, and the fact that my sister and I had engaged in our share of sisterly strife whoofed away as I turned sentimental in front of God and everybody. 

The "Buck-Eye" groomsmen nick-named "Pickles" and "Shakey" and "A. G.", all Ray Liotta look-a-likes straight outta Scorsese's Goodfellas film and who had obtained permission from the Catholic Powers Who Be to deign to enter a Lutheran Church, registered amusement but stifled their giggles and guffaws.  Aha, though, the bridal pump one day soon would transfer to the other foot when Marilynn Mowery's betrothed Dan and she repeated that kneeling business, as I stood high above him and his bride. "Make of our lives, one life. Day after day, one life. Now it begins. Now we start. One hand. One heart.  Only God can part us now."  This time, the groom cried...tears streaming down his face, shoulders heaving up and down.  Maybe my performance had improved...or perhaps not?  A little disconcerting. Leonard Bernstein made me a believer in the power of his music that day, either way.

Summer weddings promise sunshine and fresh flowers, and daddies of those brides willingly or grudgingly give up golf games to give daughters away. Winter weddings, however, surprise! I know. My Christmas season nuptials? Characterized by an ice storm, an over-flowing toilet, a nearly tragic last-minute mis-communication between bride and groom regarding, "Shall we memorize our vows?" (One of us did so, while the other stood slack-jawed.), AND necessary budget-consciousness.  Seventy dollar Murray Hamburger clearance gown off the rack from L. S. Ayres, a maid of honor breathlessly-arrived from Virginia, and one junior bridesmaid--all gathered and at the ready. Susie, Laraine and teen-aged Kathy each carried a single poinsettia cuz such a large honkin' flower suggests a sizeable, high-priced bouquet. I tossed the Jackie Kennedy lace pillbox head-piece onto the top of my head as if I were "beanied" Jughead from the Archie comic book series, forgetting to perch the exquisite yet pesky thing onto the back of my cranium at which time it would have fallen off due to the weight of the voluminous, down-to-the-runner-covered-floor, trailing veil. (Of course, as a little toddler I insisted that my frilly "Carter's Spanky Pants" be worn backwards so that I personally could view the ruffles.  Perhaps my bridal crown's jaunty upfront positioning may have been a throw-back to an infantile philosophy.)  My dad wore a pin-striped 100% wool suit which he claimed he had borrowed from Grecian ship-mogul Aristotle Onassis.  "Jackie" had exchanged vows with "Ari" on the island of Skorpios one week prior to our humble little ceremony. 

Don and his entourage wore those incredible grey cut-away and tailed tuxedoes straight from the horse-racing, "Ascot Gavotte" scene in Broadway's My Fair Lady--those guys appeared to be a virtual chorus line of Freddie Eynsford-Hills!  Our requested soloist, a handsome African-American college friend named Roger Oliver with whom I had appeared in Once Upon a Mattress and who boasted a glorious tenor voice, opted out due to influenza--and undoubtedly stage-fright. My about-to-be father-in law, the clone of Steve Lawrence, substituted, even though we had wounded his pride neglecting to "book him for the gig" in the first place. ( Hey, Guess Who's Coming to Dinner? reigned number one at the motion picture box office that year.)  A hush fell over the sanctuary as the service commenced.  Strains of "Gesu Bambino"--the initial vocal selection--filled the church. 

Probably, the entire congregation, if not well-versed in Italian, figured bride and groom to be infanticipating.  I often regret that Don and I, crazily attired as Jughead and Freddie replete with lotsa beads, didn't warble an endless duet-version of "MacArthur Park" as we gazed longingly into each other's eyes. "Someone left the cake out in the rain...and we don't think that we can take it cuz it took so long to bake it, and we'll never have that recipe again...Oooh ooh!  Nooooo!" 

My sis's wedding trumped mine, with one exception--popular photographer Bill Jones captured our special day in full kodachrome magnificent techni-color rather than black and white "glossy".  The down side?  The rose-tinged blush on my cheek forever and a day would be immortalized as I blundered through a rather lengthy and halting recital of wedding vows "unsure of my lines" while Don seemed to channel Sir Laurence Olivier on Benzedrine.  "SEND IN THE CLOWNS!"

FINALE:  Churchy atmospheres, once characterized by such an abundance of reverence and Phantom-of-the-Opera-grandiosity, surface frequently in my dreams.  An actual experience, which I drowsily re-visit occasionally, never fails to shake me to my very foundation. One sultry Sunday morning we choir members wore only the angelic, fluffy, white cotton tops of our choir robe ensembles over our street-clothes as in summertime we entered the loft via the winding back stairway and were shielded from full view by the wooden altar rail dividing the nave from the chancel?  (Where is Danny Kaye, when I need him?)  Banker Booney Feist and cousins Mary Dowell and Marjorie Keiser ...and I, the clueless, innocent teen-ager... stood and rose to full body height...and since only four choir members had bothered to show up, I had not realized WE were NOT participating in that congregational sing-the-anthem-from-the-opened-hymnal routine, up down up down--the three of them had prepared a lovely sacred selection delivering, as a trio, an unfamiliar tune which I had never heard in my entire life. 

Once I caught on that a quartet we were not, I slowly and sheepishly closed the hymn-book and returned to my chair by easing my long, lanky frame down verrrry gradually to assure possible invisibility until the end of time. Illustrator Norman Rockwell missed a grand opportunity to preserve the four of us in oils for a Saturday Evening Post cover!  Another unresolved dream involves my usually devout-Grace-Lutheran-turned-Columbia-City-United-Methodist mother placing a hex upon me on my wedding day to the effect that I might presciently realize "how tremendously hectic the holiday season is" as the years rolled by and that adding wedding pageantry may have been rather thoughtless of me to expect of my parents--an imposition?  However, the spell turned into a magnifcent one, and a happily repeated triple holiday celebration, as infant Roy arrived on our fourth anniversary!

All those years ago, nervous new father Don bought a little silver "Bootee" bracelet-charm engraved with--our baby's name and mistakenly, beneath "Roy Edward", our decidedly earlier wedding date!  Thus, at last I bonded with my very favorite paper doll and singer from the fifties and sixties, THE Doris Day, star of 1961's Lover, Come Back, who marries the man of her dreams the exact day she gives birth, and to think, Reverend Harold Oechsle who married Don and Susie (and we all three lived happily ever after!) likened my singing style to that of Jo Stafford.  "Shrimp Boats Are A Comin' "?  Hardly!  I prefer "Que Sera Sera!" 

Posted by jennifer321 at 05:28 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

However, until junior high, when the high schoolers had moved on to the "newer than new" ranch-type C.C. J. (for "joint" cuz the township kids would join forces with the city students) H.S. building, we "youngsters" got relegated to THE West Ward, our own little world smelling of art teacher George Kind's tempera paint jars, colored chalk sticks, paste bottles, and squishy paper towels to sop up our messes.  Olfactory memories crowd my cranium as I recall the be-spectacled school secretary, Mrs. Killian, breezing into our class-rooms bearing freshly-mimeographed hand-outs for pupils to carry safely home to parents...the pungent odor of that zippy fluid perked all squirming kids up like a powerful sniff of airplane glue.  Nothing could beat that "high" except for Velma Moeller's TB "patch" tests and the rubbing alcohol she applied prior to slapping those babies onto our little flat chests and the unquestionably very best part days later during the astounding rip-off sessions!  (Another medical practice exercised, during that far-away time, saved our young lives, as we ALL opened our mouths for Dr. Jonas Salk's polio-averting "sugar" cubes.)  Additional fumes emitted from pine needles, melting candle wax, and candy cane ornaments combined as we students gathered into the great central hall 'round a huge, freshly-chopped-down-and-delivered Rockefeller Center type fir tree and sang our obligatory carols immediately preceding a rented Disney film offered for our enjoyment, followed by troop send-off for two weeks of Christmas-New Year's vacation.  Vomit and the magic janitorial-sprinkled powder-potion which sanitized, de-toxified and pleasantly aroma-fied (to avert chain-reactions), milk from Kitson's Dairy with cookies, blue ink whiffs wafting from fifth grade fountain pens Principal Dale Pence obtained from some marketing company to possibly withstand trial runs in our antsy hands, and November popping of popcorn kernels (replicating the ears of corn shared amongst Pilgrims and Indians) whetting our hunger pangs while annually tantalizingly floating from Mrs. Sheehan's rooms full of A.M. and P.M. five-year-olds re-enacting Plymouth Rock times.  Candied apples, tootsie rolls, wax lips and moustaches arrived in October when we all filed into each other's classrooms displaying our Halloween costumes we had hurriedly jumped into during our at-home lunch hours...and the lingering odor of cottage cheese from our scoured plastic containers we drug from our moms' kitchens to school for creating some kind of wacko-Easter baskets.  We could boast of double sets of twins in our class--the cute identical Geiger boys as well as the handsome fraternal Smith brothers!  Rushed home to view Pinky Lee and Howdy Doody on our black and white television sets.

Posted by jennifer321 at 09:18 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Angie, beautiful and vibrant and enough younger than I that she could be my daughter, recently moved next door, with her husband and baby girl, into a house I have loved all of my life.  I like her very much. 

Ralph Kramden depended upon Ed Norton.  Dennis the Menace tormented Mr. Wilson.  The Ricardos and the Mertzes seemed inseparable.  Robert Frost wrote of good fences...making good neighbors.  Uncle Jim, my very first neighbor, remains in my heart after 63 years.  No one has ever topped J. G. Elliott, retired Chicago accountant with the C. & E.I. Railroad Company, who greeted me when I was about one week old.  Angie now lives in HIS house--so have many other very nice folks since 1965.

Certainly, neighborhood children, numbering over 40,  graced my growing-up years:  Johnny Lillich, my first serious crush; the Whiteleather kids who visited their grandma and aunt straight across the street; sisters Jean and Jane Sievers; Bobby Hurd and Jack Blank and John Ellis who played "cowboys and Indians" with my sister and me; the Walters girls; the Wunderlich boys; the McLean children fresh from Laud; Denny and Debbie Juilleratt; Susie Erne and Lucy and Judy Langohr from waaaaaaay over Main Street way; the Robertses; the Stumps; the Gaffs; the Blumenthal sister and brother whose dog "playfully" bit me once, and wonderful Peggy Gaylord who broke my heart when she moved with her parents, Irma and George, to Ft. Wayne--when we were both but 5 years old.  Hit of the neighborhood (in addition to the Duncan playhouse equipped with a phone which was hooked up to Mother's kitchen yet mysteriously its direct line TO the house became deactivated due to an arbitrary thunderstorm?), the "movie star" in-ground Chauncey Street pool of chiropractor Dr. Michels, nearly became the site of high drama one sultry afternoon when expert swimmer Sister Sarah saved me from imminent drowning; floundering "in over my head", she preserved one of my nine lives so as not to risk my parents' ire had she gleefully "whistled a happy tune" and looked the other way.  Myra Lorber witnessed and can attest to her I. U. classmate Sarah's hedging valor!

Jim Elliott became my "Uncle" because he was very near-by while both sets of my grandparents lived hundreds of miles from Indiana, south of the Mason-Dixon line in the Carolinas.  My mother and father dubbed him "Uncle" so as not to offend him, thus the "gentleman's agreement" evolved that he would forevermore serve as a surrogate grandfather-type-person not only to the new baby but also to seven-year-old Sarah and 14 year-old-Shirley.  We all three worshipped him and his wife Ora, whom we called "Lellie".  Proud to say that my baby-talk botching of the couple's surname stuck to Mrs. Elliott who--though prim, proper, elderly and child-less-- actually "dug" that nick-name.  However, she often hinted that "Auntie Ora" seemed more appropriate.  In hindsight, it's no wonder we avoided that Dickensian term of endearment.

The Elliotts, devoted Presbyterians, bought their home, north of our family's, immediately prior to my "blessed arrival" at Lutheran Hospital.  Mrs. Sarah E. Baker and Mrs. Jennie E. Hammer, the previous owners, adored my handsome young father and leaned over the edge of their porch to welcome him home from his work, at the Blue Bell Company, each noon and at suppertime.  A West Point cadet named Douglas MacArthur may once have spent Christmas vacation in Mrs.Baker's home, right next door, as a guest of her son Scott, the future World War II General's classmate.  But all of that activity had been long ago and far away--before the Duncan family moved from a rented apartment on North Street to North Line Street with the help of Robert Estlick.  Clark Waterfall's carpenter father built our home in 1935; the Duncans moved into a nine year old house.  (Teacher Gretchen Jones, with her husband and son, occupied our happy dwelling place immediately before we did.)  As we three sisters grew, Don and Marjorie Souder's Mom & Pop grocery store, within shouting distance along the alley behind the Elliott and Duncan houses, seemed like heaven on earth.

Such love we felt throughout those years for Uncle Jim and Lellie.  Shirley, a novice teen-aged golfer, practicing her swing in our backyard, once chipped a terribly errant golf ball which crashed through one of Uncle Jim's leaded glass windows;  Sarah probably only ever pleased them as she was quiet and reserved; I visited the couple several times per day everyday and simply could not resist touching and closely examining every precious, over-protected object in their pristine home.  They liked me in spite of myself!  My very favorite pastime at the Elliotts (spelled "with two Ls and two Ts") consisted of sitting on Lellie's front porch alongside Uncle Jim in one of their three grape-vine rockers ...AND SMOKING A PIPE JUST LIKE HE DID!  We'd rock slowly back and forth and puff away and watch the cars, bikes, scooters, tri-cycles, little red wagons, roller-skaters, and farm trucks whiz by punctuated by our study of all the housewives bustling about their yards while simultaneously scolding clumps of children.  We didn't say much...pipe-smokers don't.  I was in heaven--absolutely!  Uncle Jim and Lellie tolerated me but they truly respected our cat, Thomas Jerome, who spent many sunny afternoons lolling around on a brass-head-boarded, fancy day-bed in an upstairs bedroom, basking in the sunshine pouring through their second-story rear window.  Tom frequently awoke to a plate of fresh liver and a bowl of milk.  Either the Elliotts adopted us...or our entire tribe adopted them.

Lellie died when I was an eighth grader at Marshall Memorial, and I got excused from school all morning long to attend her funeral service. I wore my first wool suit, purchased from Allen and Sadie Rush's Style Shop...I had never worn nylon stockings before that day.  Widower Uncle Jim then spent the following five years alone...except he had us, the Duncans, right next door.  This special couple had spent 14 Christmas eves with us at our house, bringing candied orange rinds and tiny surprises each time--five more Christmases remained for enjoying our Uncle Jim.

Mother drew up a contract with this beloved man stipulating that he would dine with us every Monday evening for the rest of his life and watch THE PRICE IS RIGHT ("No wonder our taxes are so high," he would mutter.) and finish with THE ANDY GRIFFITH SHOW, Don Knotts as Barney Fife his favorite character.  After Sheriff Andy Taylor seemed to voice,  "Ah 'preciate it, and good night", Uncle Jim would pull out his pocket watch, check the time, wait for our Toy Manchester, Timmy, to jump off his lap as well as to stretch and yawn a doggy yawn. Then, Daddy and Timmy would walk my pretend Ike-Eisenhower-look-alike grandfather across our driveway to his own front door.  The Elliotts never owned a car--or a television--and always caught the greyhound down at the Main Street bus-stop whenever they needed to "doctor"--or get fitted for a corset--or whatever--in Ft. Wayne.  Uncle Jim shoveled his walks and ours in all kinds of winter weather and also strolled downtown to buy THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE at Mary Hallowell's Garden Gift Shop every week, rain or shine, sharing the Sunday comic pages with me on Monday evening.  I devoured Brenda Starr--Girl Reporter, Dick Tracy and Little Orphan Annie as well as Hoosier illustrator John T. McCutcheon's annual cartoon, INJUN SUMMER.  Uncle Jim could mend anything , which we kids broke, with his mysterious infallible glue concoction.  He rescued Mother, Sarah, and me from a frenetic, flipping attack-bat during  ALFRED HITCHCOCK PRESENTS one spooky night when Daddy was somewhere...maybe at Rotary. Our fictitious Uncle/Grandpa graciously reminisced about the Chicago Mafia and Al Capone and Frank Nitti with me, the quintessential UNTOUCHABLES Desilu television series fanatic, and he saved up his NEWSWEEK magazines for us monthly. He built our playhouse while my dad handed him the tools and paint brushes and held the ladder steady. Uncle Jim was a master gardener with a grape arbor, gorgeous ferns, peonies, and the most spectacularly gnarled apple tree ever viewed upon this earth.  Shortly before he died, during my freshman year of college, he expressed his gratitude to my parents for their attentiveness.  "In 1960, the Cubs had a losing season, my apple tree blew over, I lost Ora...and this family came to my rescue." 

My mother always, always wondered about the order in which Uncle Jim listed his three disappointments.

Susie Sexton is a lifetime Columbia City resident. She and her husband, city councilman Don Sexton, have one son, Roy, of Detroit.

Posted by jennifer321 at 09:17 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)