Wallace and Ladmo 51 PERFORMING ARTS and CULTURE in the MODERN ERA 54 a MORNING ROUTE 58 the GOLDEN AGE of KITCHEN APPLIANCES 59
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1 Welcome to Tisdale Terrace Scroll down one page Welcome To Tisdale Terrace Bill McCune c.1999/2015 Phoenix, Ariz. 2 L-R Pat holding Baby Billy, Michael and Anthony. Akron, Ohio 1945 Welcome To Tisdale Terrace Bill McCune c.1999/2015 Phoenix, Ariz. 3 Welcome To Tisdale Terrace Bill McCune c.1999/2015 Phoenix, Ariz. 4 Welcome to Tisdale Terrace A Memoir from a Wee Corner of the Twentieth Century Bill McCune Copyright Bill McCune copyright 1999 and 2015 Phoenix, Arizona 602-274-0278 [email protected] These are not short stories. They are essays, ninety-five percent of which are ninety-five percent true. Introduction 6 HEADING WEST 7 ON THE STREET WHERE YOU DON‘T LIVE 8 A SIGN IN THE DESERT… 9 LIFE IN TISDALE TERRACE 12 CRIME and PUNISHMENT 17 PAINLESS BENNY 19 DUCK ‘N COVER 23 SALMON PATTIES 27 THE GREEN GABLES 29 THOSE GODDAM WINDOWS 32 A MAN OF MEANS 34 APPROPRIATE BEHAVIOR 35 WHAT I DID ON MY SUMMER VACATION 37 THE COMMUNICATIONS AGE 39 THE AD-GAME HALL OF FAME 39 ARIZONA RADIO DAYS 41 A Little Show Biz 43 Pathways To Politics 45 ARIZONA TELEVISION DAYS 46 The Big Broadcast 46 The First Federal Rangers 48 Other Stars 49 Wallace and Ladmo 51 PERFORMING ARTS AND CULTURE IN THE MODERN ERA 54 A MORNING ROUTE 58 THE GOLDEN AGE OF KITCHEN APPLIANCES 59 HOPES, FEARS AND RITES OF PASSAGE 62 THE GANG AND COMPANY 62 WINNIE RUTH JUDD HAS ESCAPED AGAIN! 66 BULL HEAD - And the Rites of Passage 68 CELEBRITIES 71 A CHRISTMAS SALE 73 WHEN ―COACH MEANT TEACHER 74 Welcome To Tisdale Terrace Bill McCune c.1999/2015 Phoenix, Ariz. 5 CRITICAL THINKING IN THE B.S.A. 76 THE GREAT GOODYEAR STRIKE 79 GUNS AND BLUBBER 81 Reg. U.S. Pat. Off. 84 PHOTO PAGES 86 - 93 THE LAST GOOD WAR 94 THE WAR 94 A SOLDIER UNKNOWN - June 6, 1944 99 MAJ. RICHARD CHARLES of Her Majesty‘s Royal Engineers 102 THE GRAVEYARD 105 THE BOMBING OF PHOENIX 109 SATURDAY NOON 109 THE BOMB 110 A FEW WORDS ABOUT RACE 112 SEGREGATING FOR GOOD HEALTH 112 ARE YOU PROUD OF YOUR SCHOOL COLORS? 113 BROTHERHOOD WEEK 116 GOING TO HIGH SCHOOL 120 HIGH SCHOOL 120 Pond Scum 120 Indoctrination 121 Illusive Paths to Glory 122 The Student Government Cartel 123 The Protocols of Public Life 124 Lesser Offices 127 The Candidate 128 SLIDE-RULE BOYS 130 Slide-rule Boys X and Y (Insecurity and Lunch) 132 ADVENTURES IN SARTORIAL SPLENDOR (or ―Tracking The Illusive Dress Code.) 134 YOU ARE WHAT YOU DRIVE 138 AUTO ACCIDENT 140 Ahh SPORTS… 142 DRIBBLING WITH A DREAM (Waiting for Saint Jude) 142 GRID, GRIT, GUTS AND GLORY 146 Determining One’s Station 147 Cheese and Crackers 149 The Big Game 150 THE PEN IS MIGHTIER THAN THE JOCKSTRAP 154 GODABOBS 156 THE KNEES KNOW 158 SELLING SHOES 159 Welcome To Tisdale Terrace Bill McCune c.1999/2015 Phoenix, Ariz. 6 OUT IN THE REAL WORLD 163 THE PHANTOM OF THE HIGH SCHOOL 163 JUSTICE DELAYED CAN BE SWEET 164 MAKING THE FLAG WAVE 169 PRISON STORIES 173 A DECISION TO REST 175 MIND YOUR P's and Q's 176 HAPPY DAYS - A DISSENTING OPINION 177 FORTUNATE SON 180 ONE NATION 182 Dedicated to the memory of Harry Golden May 6, 1902 – October 2, 1981 Publisher of The Carolina Israelite newspaper. One of our finest essayists, humorists, crusaders, and writers of life in the early to mid American 20th Century. As the title of his largest bestselling book implies, he saw that the best things happen ONLY IN AMERICA Introduction Here at the beginning of the 21st century, everyone is talking about the great events of the past hundred years: the wars, The Bomb, the movements, the “isms.” But somewhere, lower down the ladder of human events, in a wee corner of the twentieth century, in a place called Tisdale Terrace, there was another American history. That is this memoir. On the surface, it may appear to be a collection of humorous - and sometimes poignant - essays, written by a kid, forty or fifty years after the fact. And it is. But it is also an examination - at the family, school-yard and street corner levels - of feelings and perspectives; the American experience in post-World War Two suburbia. Some Americans yearn for those times. Television called it Happy Days. And, perhaps, compared to the challenges of today‘s youngsters, they were happier. But I think being a kid is being a kid. Even in those simpler, more innocent times, the insecurities and uncertainties of youth were very real; and it seems, were no different than they are a half century later. Bill McCune, Phoenix Welcome To Tisdale Terrace Bill McCune c.1999/2015 Phoenix, Ariz. 7 Heading West Seventy-five years earlier they had come in covered wagons, but their excitement in blazing a trail and opening a new frontier couldn't have been any greater than mine. My conveyance was a big red and white Continental Trailways bus that swayed as it rolled along, and jolted from the woosh of wind as we met oncoming trucks along the two lanes of old Route 66. Like those who landed at Ellis Island, (as did my maternal grandparents) our purpose was to start a new life in a new land. Like many of them, my father had gone ahead to a foothold, then sent for the wife and family. Like everyone who has ever pulled up stakes and moved to someplace they had never been before, my imagination raced with images of what I would find when I got there. It was 1951. We were moving from Ohio to Arizona and I was six years old. Before we left Akron, my brothers and I had begun to enjoy a certain status in the old neighborhood. It took a special kind of kid to give up all the luxuries of civilized Midwestern living. Arizona - it was well known - was a land without paved roads, electricity and indoor toilets. Likely we would be riding horses to school, witnessing shoot- outs at the corral, and living in fear of raids by “bands of marauding Apaches on the warpath of death.” It took a special kind of kid. I remember the first Indians I ever saw. It was somewhere along Route 66 near Monument Valley. The driver pulled the crowded bus off the highway to pick them up. There was a middle aged woman and her ten-year old son. She wore a long deep purple skirt with a large silver Concho belt at the waist. Her blouse was a burgundy color, and around her neck was a turquoise and silver squash blossom necklace. The boy, I was disappointed to note, wore blue jeans, tennis shoes and a T-shirt - just like me. Today I would know that they were Navajos. But at that time and place I knew that they were murderous Apaches - a scouting party who would report back to Cochise, personally, and help plan the big ambush. I wondered how I could get to the cap gun I had stowed in my suitcase. Welcome To Tisdale Terrace Bill McCune c.1999/2015 Phoenix, Ariz. 8 One can imagine the apprehension we felt when the Indian boy confronted my twelve-year-old brother, Pat. I knew he was about to pull a tomahawk from under his T-shirt. I knew the arrows were about to start flying. I knew we were about to be on the bleeding side of a massacre. What I wasn't prepared for was what this blood-thirsty warrior said to Pat, “Would you please put your little baby brother on your lap so my mother can sit down?'' I guess I was relieved that we weren't going to get killed, but I sure wasn't thrilled with that “little baby brother crack”. On the Street Where You Don’t Live We had all seen the street in a hundred cowboy movies. There was certainly no pavement and no streetlights. The sidewalks were made of wood planks, and every fifty feet or so there was a hitching post. Cowboys rode by on their quarter horses; farmers in their wagons; perhaps a lady in buckboard. There was a saloon, a general store, a dress shop run by the Widow Brown, and down at the end of the street, a wood framed church with bell tower and steeple. It was exactly what we expected our new home in the west to be. It was exactly nothing like what we found. I remember my father meeting us at the bus station in downtown Phoenix. Certainly it was not the urban setting of Grand Central Station in New York, but it was surrounded by concrete and traffic. I was shocked to see such structures as the Luhrs Building and the Westward Ho Hotel, each of which was at least a dozen stories tall. If these discoveries were disquieting, they paled in comparison to the utter disappointment I felt as we were ushered into the same old 1941 DeSoto my dad drove in Ohio. Surely, I felt, at minimum, living out west should mean that each of us would have our own pony. I'm certain I didn't know the word “betrayal'' in the summer between the first and second grades, but I knew the feeling. I had Welcome To Tisdale Terrace Bill McCune c.1999/2015 Phoenix, Ariz. 9 convinced myself that it was going to be something akin to Gene Autry's Melody Ranch movies .