For 11 years, 1951-1961, my school was a squarish, 3 storey, red brick facility in Logan Falls, Ohio built in 1927 after a fire destroyed the previous wooded school building. According to local legend, the school board conspired to burn down the old school, and this arson induced township voters to approve a new school, which proved to be indestructible. In 2020, 6 years shy of its 100th birthday, the red brick building still stands. Now, the local legend is that it sits empty, because nobody can afford to maintain it and nobody can afford to tear it down.
During my first grade year, our family had bought our first house and had moved to Logan Falls from a nearby town. In the Fall of 1951, as I marched up the stairs to Logan Falls’ only second grade classroom, I was starting to feel at home. The first couple of weeks went by easily. By the third week of school, Mrs. Glowacki was giving me a new book to read every morning while the rest of the class did its regular stuff. A month later, when I had read most of the books in the room, Mrs. G came and told me she had talked to the superintendent and my mother, and they decided to put me in the 3rd grade.
If I was feeling a little uncomfortable reading books while the rest of the class was drilling, now I really felt weird. Nobody had asked what I wanted to do. They hadn’t yet given 6-year-old kids the vote in those days. It seemed to be a fait accompli. Mrs. G claimed she could tell that I knew everything the second grade had to offer during the first two weeks. She said I would get bored just watching the other kids learn what I already knew, and would not do any learning myself.
My biggest problem with the whole thing was that I loved Mrs. Glowacki, and I was just getting into our relationship. I would hardly ever see her again, but these feelings had a low priority with the people in charge. None of us foresaw the other unintended consequences of my promotion. (a) I would be shorter than every girl in my class for the next 6 years; (b) 10 years later, one year after my graduation, the Logan Falls High Bulldogs would come close to winning a State Basketball Championship, and I would miss it!
The next day, I padded over to the 3rd grade classroom next door, and assumed my new role as the smallest, smartest kid in the class, but feeling like an alien who had arrived from another planet.
About this age, I began to get a little interest in movies and TV, beyond cartoons. One of the first adult movies I remember was Broken Arrow with James Stewart (1950), a pretty adult western with very little shooting. It was about a guy who tries to make peace between the white settlers and the Apache tribes in Arizona around 1870. Jimmy, playing a guy named Jeffords, who actually existed, starts paying visits to an Apache chieftain (Cochise) and falls in love with an Native American girl.
It took about 15 minutes for me to become a lifelong Jimmy Stewart fan. My parents got the point, and took my brother and I to see other Jimmy classics, like Bend in the River and Winchester ’73. It would be 1957, as a 12-year old, before I saw my first non-western Jimmy movie, The Spirit of St. Louis. Years later, I would become aware that western movies were just the tip of the iceberg for Stewart. In the pre-war years, before he would head up a bomber squadron and lose a lot of his hair, Jimmy danced and sang, filibustered in the Senate, tracked down crooks, and romanced famous actresses. In all this, he never, ever failed me. Not once.
I probably saw It’s A Wonderful Life for the first (or maybe time when I was 30 or so. I wasn’t very impressed that first time, though I really liked Donna Reed. It took a lot of viewing and life experience before I began to realize that not only was this movie not a fake, it was actually about my own life.
In childhood, I sometimes got my father confused with Jimmy Stewart, as they were my two standards of what a man should be.
As a pre-adolescent, Clark Gable and John Wayne had no appeal, but I loved Jimmy. In those days, I thought a real man would lead with kindness and sensitivity, resorting to aggression and nastiness only when necessary. The[CM1] thing that thrilled me then, and later, was the way Jimmy would be sweet and cuddly, but then, when the things he loved were threatened, he would suddenly flare up and fight back so intensely. In my child’s mind, I thought, “This is what life in America is all about. Work hard, do your best, take care of your kids, and protect them from harm. If your way of life is threatened, fight back, and fight hard. Never give in!” To me that was Jimmy Stewart. To me that was America.
Girls and What They Want
During adolescence, I started to learn the nuances of life. I noticed that girls actually never noticed you if you acted like Jimmy Stewart. They liked you to strut around like a peacock, stake out your territory, talk tough and push people around. I suppose that was how they figured out if you were a boy and not a girl. Girls seemed to like guys with a lot of swagger who were aggressive to the point of being stupid and made fools of themselves. Then they would forgive them all their weaknesses, and try to save them from themselves. What I learned about girls during adolescence made me want to puke almost daily.
Years later, I began to understand that girls didn’t have that many choices. They sort of had to be the way they were. That made me like them a lot more. It took me about 30 more years to learn how to talk to girls and spend time with them.
One thing I learned later was that girls are all about protecting what they love. That was when I started to love them. They were looking for someone who could protect them and what they loved. I think protecting what you love is the most important single thing you can do … as a man or a woman. When I learned that, I began to think maybe I was a woman trapped in a man’s body. But, I don’t remember ever being attraced to boys. It was more like I had a feminine side to my mind.
I don’t know exactly where that came from, maybe my Celtic side. I learned that women were more like equals in Celtic culture, that they would sometimes lead tribes and go into battle. And, in Celtic culture, there were always “wise women” who gave advice . My grandmother was a “wise woman” in a small town in Kansas, until that little town died. I never knew any Catholic or Muslim guys who thought like I did. Anyway, at some point, I saw that women want to protect what they love. I always felt like being a real man meant being able to protect what you love. I saw Jimmy Stewart and my father do that, and that was what I wanted to do. I always throught that being a man was about being able to build and protect, and not about having the power to destroy things.
In adolescence, girls with average IQs think that being aggressive and abusive proves that you will be able to protect them. Later on, they realize that money and power is better evidence. The higher the IQ, the more they understand that the power to protect is partly financial, but ultimately it arises from intellectual ability. Once I started finding that type of woman, my life got much better.
Little League
In the Spring of 1953, my brother Mel got word the Lions Club would sponsor a Little League team in Logan Falls. As a 10-year-old, Mel was in their target age range of 9-12. [CM2] Our whole family went to the first Little League tryout ever held in Logan Falls. The coaches, in their Lions Club jackets, looked over a line of 17 skinny 10-12 year-olds plus a couple of 9-year-olds. I was 8, so I sat on the bench with a few parents who had ventured out on a cool, cloudy night. My dad, Gene, attended out of curiosity, while my mother Evelyn, showed up to assess the Lions Club guys as mentors for her son.
I figured they would need someone to shag balls, so I sidled over behind the backstop. Pretty soon, the fat Lions Club guy, Elmo, went to the mound and started throwing pitches to a kid who said he could catch. One by one, Elmo threw pitches to each aspirant until he had hit 10 fair balls. Elmo’s pitches were slow and accurate, making him perfect for Little League batting practice. Only 7 or 8 kids hit line drives out of the infield, so Elmo and Clyde (the thinner Lions Club guy) were getting a little discouraged.
As I stood at the back stop throwing foul balls back to Elmo, he suddenly pointed at me, saying:
“Kid. How old are you? You can throw pretty good. Why aren’t you trying out? “
I said I was 8-years old and came to watch my brother tryout. Fat Elmo said: “You helped us out by shagging balls. Get up there and take your 10 swings.”
I hit a line drive and a couple of hard grounders. One was too hot for Elmo, and he smiled. Then, I hit a couple of pop-ups and a couple of fly balls and a line drive. Elmo and Clyde noticed that I didn’t swing at bad pitches, and hit every pitch I swung at. The next thing I knew, I was an 8-year-old Little Leaguer.
I got to bat once or twice all summer, but weqring a uniform on the bench was a lot better than sitting in the grandstand. Some of my mother’s 6th grade students came to watch a game, and started chanting: “We want Jim. We want Jim.” Elmo, the fat coach, told me that because I was small, he was sending me up to get a walk. I was supposed to crouch down low and take every pitch. If I swung, he would whack me. I walked on 4 pitches.
The next year, when I was 9, I played regular right field, but my hitting was weak. The following summer, 1955, I had just finished 6th grade, and I was 10 years old. I was a regular infielder, I moved up in the batting order, and in game 2, I started to hit really well. The rest of that year, I was fearless at bat, and felt like nobody could get me out.
In 1961,when I was a senior in high school, I turned 16 and got my Ohio driver’s license. On of the first things I did was take my girl friend Mary Beth to the movies. It was so great to take someone to the movies instead of being taken, One of the first movies we saw was Ben-Hur (A Tale of Christ) starring a youngish Charlton Heston and (literally) a cast of thousands. Anyone who was around in those cold-war days remembers there was a mania for re-making biblical epics in the 50’s and 60’s. Cecil B. DeMille, and others, had had made a bunch of biblical movies in the 50’s with top Hollywood stars using the new Technicalcolor film process wide screen 70 mm multi-camera shots … the wide screen and stereophonic sound with huge speakers. William Wyler and Stan Kubrick took all this technology, got better script writers than DeMille and made Ben-Hur and Spartacus and made the most adult big-screen spectacles ever.
Both of these movies had a pretty big impact for me. Ben-Hur was an historical novel written by a Army General (Lew Wallace) who had fought in the civil war. It was written like a secular historical novel, but Christ was the hero. Ben-Hur was the first story about Jesus I had ever experienced where the script was not the Bible. Like a lot of kids who grew up in the 1950’s, most of what were told about God and Jesus seemed like a bunch of B.S. (We weren’t allowed to say that word outside of locker rooms.) Here was a whole story about Jesus told, in a sense, by a 3rd party, that is, someone who wasn’t bought and paid for by organized religion.
In the story, Judah Ben-Hur is a prince of Judah (Israel) who grows up with nice parents in a fancy house. In those days, Judah (the country) is an outpost in the Roman Empire. One day, the Romans have a big parade. Everyone is watching the dressed-up soldiers and horses from their windows and housetops. One of those terra cotta tiles (like they were still using in Europe) from Ben’s roof slides off and smashes on the road in front of an important Roman. The Romans are edgy, because Judeans are not the most loyal guys in the Empire, so they jail everyone in Ben-Hur’s house. His family is locked up and Ben-Hur is sent as a slave to work in the galleys.
When I went into the movie, I thought a galley was a kitchen on a boat. You probably know that a galley was a Roman battleship rowed by slaves, but I was a high school kid. The nautical battle in this movie became an instant classic, one of the most amazing movie scenes ever. It turns out that William Wyler and MGM were consciously trying to top the battles scenes in Cecil B. DeMilles silent version of Ben-Hur, which were also amazing. So, the adventure began.
What a great plot! A guy living in military empire is going along pretty well; then, suddenly, he hits an air pocket and falls to the bottom of society. As a galley slave, he shows initiative and courage, and gets some luck. Because he has performed so well as a slave, one of the Romans officers unlocks his chains during a big battle wheile the galley is sinking. All the chained slaves rown when the galley sinks except Ben-Hur escapes with his life., then rescues the Roman officer by pulling him onto a makeshift raft. The Roman officer takes Ben-Hur to his house, a later on adopts him, making Ben-Hur a Roman prince.
So, now you ask: “Where does Jesus come in?”
Before the sea battle, while the Roman soldiers are dragging him across the desert to the galleys, they stopped at an oasis. The Romans are drinking water, then giving it to their horses and sloshing it around every which way, but none for the galley slaves who are tied up with ropes.
Enter Jesus stage left. Ben Huir (Charlton Heston) is on his knees begging the Romans for a drink, and this ladle full of water comes into the picture. The ladle is held in this huge, muscular carpenter’s hand. The other hand, which is also gigantic, comes into the picture and gently strokes Ben-Hur’s head, comforting him as he drinks the water.
Wow! Anyone from the western world who got past kindergarten knows whose hands these are. They never show his face, and his clothing is like everyone else’s. There is no fake aura of light around him, but the desert sun is shining on these huge, gentle hands. What a shot!
Now the Roman soldiers notice that someone is helping out the slave. They advance on Jesus and order him to withdraw the water from Ben-Hur. Again, you don’t see his face, but he’s a carpenter with huge arms, a big scary dude! Apparently Jesus gives the Romans some kind of look, and their mouths drop, and they start backing up. This Jesus is no wimpy, pathetic guy looking like a victim. Bill Wyler’s Jesus is a man’s man. What a scene!
This scene started to change my whole concept of Jesus, and organized religion. I had there were people who debated whether He actually exited or was only a myth, but it didn’t seem to make much difference. Now, it occurred to me that maybe Jesus could really have existed and was probably better and more interesting than the Jesus that minsters and priests were talking about. Until that moment, I thought of Jesus as having been over-sold. It never occurred to me that maybe he was being under-sold.
Another important scene in Ben-Hur is The Sermon on the Mount, with Ben-Hur nearby watching. In this scene, Jesus sets up on the side of a big hill and a bunch of people gradually show up. They look diverse (different skins colors and different clothes), you get the impression some have traveled a long way to see this guy. This scene is totally believable to a kid, because it looks kind of like a rock concert.
In the movie, what you get to hear Jesus says sounds straight out of the book of Matthew. That was OK with me, because The Sermon on the Mount encapsulates most of the things in the New Testament that made any actual sense to a normal person in the 1961. I later heard people I respect say a few things about the Sermon on the Mount: (a) It represents things that Jesus is likely to have actually said; (b) Most of these teachings were very radical at the time; (c) They encapsulate much of what is worthwhile about Christianity.
In this movie, the thing about the Sermon on the Mount is: Ben-Hur combines the Sermon on the Mount and his earlier experience getting a drink at the oasis, and decides that Jesus is his guy, and he is going to follow him.
So, no priests required. Except for testifying against Him in the trial with Pontius Pilate, you don’t see any priests in the movie at all. I walked away thinking that maybe Jesus existed, and maybe he was a pretty cool dude. (Of course, we teenagers didn’t have “dude” in our lexicon in 1961, but I couldn’t find a better word. “Cool cat” doesn’t quite deliver the goods.)
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Dwight D. Eisenhower (aka “Ike”) brandished a shiny golf club, pointing its shiny persimmon wood head toward a fairway lined with lush, tropical-looking trees. Smiling at three of his favorite advisors, Ike offered his opinion that this golf course was as fine as any.
“As President, I get to blow off a little steam painting and playing golf, because my job is a real bear. Being the Supreme Allied Commander was no day on the farm, either. I feel old beyond my years. ”
Charlie Wilson, who had been President of General Motors before taking a post in Ike’s cabinet agreed. My last two jobs (at G.M. and now, in the Cabinet) were a piece of cake compared to your last two.”
Ike sliced his tee shot a bit, but it landed safely on the right side of the fairway about halfway to the green. As the four men walked along the fairway, one spoke.
“Ike, between the Russians and McCarthy, we are presented with two dopey extremes. This guy Stalin steals A-bomb secrets and makes his own atom bomb. Then, he kills 5 million Kulaks so he can take their land for his “agrarian reform”. But, somehow, Stalin still has a lot of fans in this country, especially writers, actors, and journalists … people who can influence public opinion. On the other hand, McCarthy is a nutty demagogue who should be stopped. The media thinks McCarthy is worse than Stalin.”
“Ike grimaced. “I know, I know. We need to deactivate McCarthy without giving aid and support to the Communists, a tough assignment. Most Americans could care less about the Kulaks or Communism. They’re more worried about a Russion A-Bomb. We have to move carefully on McCarthy.”
“Civil rights has similar pitfalls. Of course, the negroes have deserved full civil rights since the 14th Amendment in 1868. When the Supreme Court ordered de-segregation of schools, and the mob in Little Rock rioted to prevent integration, we sent in 1,000 Federal Troops. With 11 southern states and the Democrat party ignoring the 14th amendment for 88 years, how can we really send federal troops everywhere civil rights are being denied? We need some help here.”
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The old guys at the University of Chicago had gotten older by 1957, but they still showed up regularly for lunch at the Faculty Club. Some had been retired to emeritus status by now.
One man in an old-fashioned European suit spoke up. “Vell, you know the Russinas have turned out to be vurse dan Hitler in many vays. I am glad ve decided to come here.”
Another man in a more modern short-sleeved white shirt and tie suddenly stiood and spoke. He was balding but younger and more vigorous, seemingly in his prime academic years. “Yes. My parents looked at the options and came here 1910. I have never regretted their wisdom. Our so-called Chicago School of Economics is beginning to show the world how important economics has become in the modern world. With its respect for free choice, and positive business climate, the USA has become much stronger than it was a decade ago. Europe is recovering, but it will never dictate terms to the world as it did in the past. Russia and China and others will challenge as their economies grow and they have more control of their resources. The problem of America will be deciding how much it can really do outside it own shores.”
“Ya.” Another elegant, graying man spoke up, “It would be good to stay at home and mind our own business, but we might end up on the receiving end of a first strike by the Russians.”
The younger man broke in again. “Well, I think we need to keep a significant number of people in uniform, keep dreaming up new weapons, but try not to use them much … perhaps ‘speak softly but carry a big stick’, as they used to say. The most important thing is our understanding that economic strength means everything, that a strong economy is much more potent weapon than guns and ammunition.”
“At some future time, unless really serious diplomatic blunders are made, the USA will eclipse the USSR by virtue of its economic strength alone sometime before 1990.”
Categories: Life Stories, Stories
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