1961

Mad Magazine proclaims 1961 to be the first upside down year.

I was nine years old and in Miss Cormac's third grade glass reading all about those crazy kids, Dick, Jane and Sally. My grandmother, who I called Dandy, spent a lot of time at our house this year.

This was a presidential inauguration year. Folks were running scared that a...Catholic...was to become president. Life as we had known it would be forever lost, the nuns from outer space would invade and we would be herded off to colonies under the iron rule of the Pope.

They were partially correct. Life as we knew it did indeed change. On the other hand, the Republican candidate, Richard Nixon, had lost the 1960election. He won the election in 1968 and again in 1972.

We know what happened. Nixon lied about involvement with the Watergate Hotel break in to the Democratic offices. We know that sitting presidents have lied to the public in the past, but Nixon was the first to be caught in the act. He was forced to resign. Before Nixon the public had faith in it's leaders. After Nixon there was not only instense public distrust, but this also lead to media scrutiny.

However getting back to the topic at hand 1961, it was apparent in the 1960 presidential race we had the same candidates as we are offered now, a ferret versus a weasel.

Why do I say that considering President Kennedy was a very popular president and was remembered for only his virtues and good deeds for those of us that recall his tragic assassination in November of 1963. Perhaps the term ferret may seem objectionable. But as was later discovered, Kennedy was a womanizer and adulterer. His wealthy father had funded his election and enlisted the support of his mafia connections, especially in the state of Illinois in order assure a presidential victory for his son. There is some that believe that after Kennedy became President, his stand against organized crime was what did him in. We may never know.

Kennedy had visited Newport, Kentucky during his campaign and visited Cote Brilliante Elementary School and shook hands with a little red-haired girl that would become my wife.

So the Kennedy family entered the White House and became the first celebrity president.

Men quit wearing hats, since Kennedy never wore one.

Everyone liked Mrs. Kennedy. Women wanted to be her. Men thought she was a hottie. Women started wearing pill box hats, since that's what Jackie wore. The first lady had started a fashion trend. In one of the most viewed TV shows of the year, Mrs. Kennedy took the public on a televised tour of the White House. Of course this was in black and white, since no one owned color TV's in 1961.

• 1961 was the year that President Kennedy sent 18000 Military Advisors to South Viet Nam.
• Fidel Castro declares Cuba, a nation that is only 90 miles from the border of the USA, to be a Communist nation and learns that fist shaking is an effective public speaking technique.
• Barbie gets a boyfriend when the Mattel Toy company creates Ken.
• The Secretary General of the UN, Dag Hamerskjold is killed in an airplane crash this year.
• The United Nations General Assembly elects a new Secretary General with the world's shortest first name. U Thant. If you have forgotten or did not know, U was pronounced ooh.
• Neil Armstrong set a flight speed record in an experimental jet called the X-15.
• The Space-Race was all the talk of 1961. The Russians sent a doggie into space. America this year was sending a chimpanzee into space. The chimp's name was Ham. Yes, HAM IN SPACE, probably lead to the Muppet Show's drama, PIGS IN SPACE. Well it might of.
• Surprisingly to all of us, the Viet Nam War starts and America participates for a long drawn out process. How fortuitous of Kennedy to send those 18,000 Military Advisors just 6 months earlier this year.
• There was always talk on the news about The Iron Curtain. This was hard for a nine year old boy with a vivid imagination to understand this allegory. I thought that somewhere there existed this incredibly huge and rusty Iron Curtain.
• This was doubly hard for me to understand, since during August of 1961 the commies of East Berlin constructed an actual brick and barbed wire wall dubbed the Berlin Wall.
• Paris, which is said to be beautiful in the springtime but revolting the rest of the year, massacred it's citizens this year during a massive revolt called the Paris Massacre of 1961. 30,000 citizens aggressively protested against a curfew that was aimed at only the Allgerian population.
• Ernest Hemmingway commits suicide and leaving many, many six-toed cats behind.
• A Russian nuclear powered submarine crashes in the ocean and the reactor leaks. This is possibly the cause of a new breed of fish called Tialapia that becomes a big hit in restaurants 45 years later.
• Charlie Brown finally is able to fly a kite without the tree eating it, but still can't kick the football.
• Allen Shepard is the first man in space.
• This same year Gus Grisom becomes the second man in space.
• The American Civil Rights Movement which had already begun meets to form the Congress of Racial Equality.
• Out of this movement they make headlines later in the year when a bus carrying members called Freedom Riders is firebombed in Atlanta, Georgia.
• In the next few months the Freedom Riders are arrested for disturbing the peace in Jackson, Mississippi.
• Race riots break out in Alabama and the governor declares martial law.
• President Kennedy meets with Charles DeGaulle, the president of France and Nikita Khruschev, the president of Russia this year.
• Stalin's body is removed from the Lenin Mausoleum (perhaps there was a mix up).
• Roger Marris hits his 61st homerun beating Babe Ruth's record.
• Adolph Eichman is found guilty of crimes against humanity by an Israeli court.
• Kennedy sends in secret operatives that were former Cuban exciles to Cuba in a disasterous failed plot to overthrow the Castro government called The Bay of Pigs.

I vividly recall some of these events and some of them I remember, but did not understand at the time. My prime concern in 1961 was getting out of Miss Cormac's Red Bird reading group and moving up to the Blue Bird group, when was the clock going to say 2:30 so I could go home and watch TV or play with my friends, how come I had to do 3 pages of math homework, when was Daddy coming home tonight, would summer coming soon or would we be off tomorrow because of all the snow so I could sled ride on the gulf course.

I was glad that Dandy was staying at our house. I loved her.

Things I Do Not Understand

I guess I am becoming an old curmudgeon but there are some things that I just do not get. Here is the short list:

Nasal Jewelry - Nose jewelry is mentioned in the Bible. Check out Song of Solomon. Old Schlomo seems to dig the nose ring his sweetie is wearing. I just don't get it. Yessir, there's nothing more beautiful than a girl with a big ol' silver ring dangling from her nose holes.


It brings to mind Elsie the Cow.

The subdued version is the little diamond thingy that young ladies stick on the side of their schnoz. "Excuse me Miss, you have something on your nose. Here's a tissue. Oh, I'm sorry. You say that's jewelry. It looked like you had a bugg...well nevermind."

BTW, are those jewel things stick-on or do you have to have actually drill a hole into your nose? I have enough problems with allergies and am curious if that would leak out the side when your nose was runny.


Earrings on guys - When I was in my 20's I worked with a guy that was formerly a Merchant Marine. He wore a small circular gold earring. This was a sign that he sailed through the Panama Canal. I'm OK with that.


Now it is uncommon to see young boys without some sort of aural decorations. I've seen some young guys with the same earrings I gave my dear old Auntie for Christmas one year.


I'm wonder in the not-to-distant future, wil men have jewelry parties, where they can get together with the guys, gnosh on some chips and taco dip, drink a cold one and try out the latest in ear-wear? I wonder?


Neck tattoos - A girl that I worked with had some sort of Chinese neck art that resembled a UPC code. I was curious what would happen if she got scanned at the grocery store.



TV Commercials for Laxatives and Fiber Products

Some nights I can hardly wait for my favorite TV show to be interrupted so I can see the commercial with Jamie Lee Curtis talking to her new friend about how excited they both are because the new friend now poops on a regular basis.

The friend, don't ya' know, was all bound up until she tried new Fiber-Con. Now she wants the whole world to know she poos every day right on schedule. I'm glad.



Cat ladies Several times a year there are news stories about women that are living with 100 or more kitties. Why cats? You never hear about Dog ladies or Weasel ladies or Bunny ladies?


Guitar face - I play guitar. When I first started I had an old Harmony Patrician with strings that were about an inch above the neck. The only strings available locally were Black Diamond strings. These came in one extremely thick heavy gauge. It hurt to play that guitar. I don't recall if I made faces when I tried to play a bar chord on that guitar, but I had every right to.

Now days guitar strings come in light gauge, ultra light gauge, micro-light gauge and gossimer gauge. Computer controlled machinery makes even the crappiest guitar easy to play. But there are more guitar faces on folks strumming a big D chord than ever. It ain't that hard and it don't hurt folks.


The 1930 through 1950's Movie Actresses that had that sort-of-English-but-not-quite accent - When I was young I watched Father Knows Best and some other TV shows and movies. The leading women all spoke with this unusual speech affliction. "Oh Dah-row-thee, please do be cah-ro-fall not to step on any of the preh-she-ous munch-kans." My Mom grew up in that era. So did all my Aunts and none of them spoke like that. No one talks like that any longer.

I'm glad. Rah-eelee Ah'm gah-lad.

Beer - A cold beer tastes pretty good occasionally. I don't often drink beer. I used to sell a lot of beer. I recall folks that bought a 24 pack of beer on a daily basis.

Do the math. 24 twelve ounce cans of liquid is 288 ounces.


A gallon of milk is 128 ounces.

I doubt if I could down a gallon of water every day. I could not conceive of drinking 2 gallons of water unless I was a horse. 2 gallons is 256 ounces. But there are plenty of people that consume 288 ounces of beer a day and then complain about gas prices.


Railroad Cars with Gang Graffiti - I was watching a movie called Wyatt Earp last weekend. Back in 1867 the surviving Earp brothers had just put their family on a train and were in a scene where they were standing around the boxcars. I sensed something wrong.

The boxcars did not have any gang tags spray painted on them. I guess the Clanton brothers, the Earp's nemesis, just hadn't gotten around to painting their gang marks on those boxcars. You just don't see trains go by without seeing a lot of strange squiggles and box letters spray painted on them.


I wonder if my cousin Eddie puts gang graffiti on his model railroad boxcars. He really ought to.

Smiling Bob - The Feeling of Inadequacy

Steven Warshak the president of Berkley Premium Nutriceuticals which make the supposed Male enhancement drug Enzyte was sentenced by Federal Judge Arthur Spiegel of the 6th District U.S. Circuit Court to spend the next 25 years in Federal prison for being guilty of 93 counts of conspiracy, fraud and money laundering.

He was found to have bilked consumers out of over $100 million with a scheme that caused consumers to be billed on their credit cards for products they did not order. His advertisements which are still running on TV were found to be deceptive. The company also refused to refund money to irrate consumers that had asked for their money.


The company was made to forfeit $500 million in assets.


Other company officials that did not cooperate with Federal prosecutors were also sentenced to serve time in prison. These included vice presidents, the company's on staff attorney and accountant, Warshak's sister and brother and also Warshak's 75 year old mother who was active in the company and a board member.



When asked to comment Smiling Bob had only this to say, "I feel emasculated."

This Week's Menu - Same As Last Week's Menu

There's still nothing fresh on the menu.

More Things My Grandchildren Will Never See - Telephones from My Early Years

My first experience with the telephone occurred when I was around 3 years old. My family lived in an apartment. The black rotary dial phone was in the dining area on a table.

One day I picked the phone up and listened to the dial tone just to see what would happen. After about 15 seconds it stopped and made a different noise. Then a lady came on the phone and said, "Get off the phone little boy!" I jumped up and slammed down the receiver. I stayed away from the phone until I was much older.


We moved to a house when I was five. Most families at this time had telephones that were hooked up to what was called a Party Line. This shared service was cheaper than a private line. The downside of the arrangement was that you could not use your phone when your neighbor from up the street was talking on his or her phone. Occasionally you would lift the receiver and hear a conversation. Then you had to gently place the receiver down as to not appear to be eavesdropping.

The family next door had a father that refused to have a phone in the house. Subsequently their teenaged daughter would frequently stop by and ask to use our phone.


Did I mention rotary dials? All phones had a wheel on them with with 10 holes cut out in which you placed your finger. You first had to dial the correct letter for your area prefix then the number of your area and then the four digit phone number by twisting the wheel clockwise to the finger stop and then wait for the dial to spring back to it's standard position.

What happened was that each space on the dial corresponded with electrical pulses that were sent to a switchboard that recognized by the amount of pulses where to route your call.

Number 1 was the shortest distance with the fewest pulses. The next was ABC - number 2 was next followed by DEF number 3 and so on. The handset had an ear piece and a mouthpiece. When you were done with the call you hung the handset or receiver up by placing it back in the cradle that had a spring operated button on each side. Depressing the buttons turned the phone to the off position.

When telephones became common place in the home the areas of each community were given alphabetic prefixes. Common place prefixes would be the first two letters of a name. For example BEechwood, COlumbia, PArkway, HEmlock, HIghland were all common prefixes.
For a local call you would dial BE4-5789. Long distance calls required operator assistance. For that you just dialed "0".

The problem with dial phones was dexterity. If you were in a hurry and didn't move the dial all the way to the finger stop you would enter the wrong phone number.


The mystery is why rotary telephones used only 24 of the 26 alphabet characters. There was no Q or Z on the dial. 1 was left without characters because it was used for internal telephone company signals and 0 was used to contact the operator. The history of Ma Bell tells us the company had to decide on which letters were least used and Bell engineers decided on Q and Z.

This was pretty much overlooked until texting became a telephone function and anyone using the standard 12 key telephone would have to use 7 for Q and 9 for Z.

Of course there were people of that day that didn't want to bother with dialing a phone or even calling out. So you could have a phone without a dial. It was less expensive. If you had to call out you merely clicked the receiver buttons several times and the operator would answer. These phones were popular in rural areas with not much service. You were assigned a specific bell ring or series of rings to let you know the call was for you. All phones of this era had an actual bell inside that would alert you to an incoming phone call.

In the 1960's Bell engineer experimented with the phone using a key pad instead of a dial. The key pad phone used differing pitched tones or frequencies instead of a series of electrical pulses. The key pad included a # or octohorpe which is commonly referred to as the pound key and a * or asterisk commly referred to as the star key. The mystery of this phone is that the keypad is reversed from most calculators.

Touch tone phones did not become standard until the early 1980's. Prior to this most people rented their phone from the phone company. The rent was minimal and was included on your phone bill. Sometime in the 1970's companies began to sell phones to the public. Eventually most of us own our phone. Virtually all phones connected to wires are touch tone phones.

At first most of the public was informed why the key pad included the # and *. We were told it would be useful in the future and please just sit down and be quiet.

There was a comic strip called Dick Tracy about a detective. He had all sorts of gadgets including a car phone and a wrist two-way radio.

These were usually noted by the artist, Chester Gould, with a small sign that said two way wrist radio and an arrow pointing to Tracy's wrist, because we were way to stupid to remember from strip to strip that the character used these communication devices.

Although the artist and author may have been somewhat condesending, he did have vision. Although wrist radios never caught on, Cell phones are all the rage and some have built in walkie talkies. I suppose you could duct tape them to your wrist if you were so inclined.


I knew people in the 1970's that had car phones. They were more on the order of long range walkie talkies than phones. Owning and using a car phone in that era required an FCC license. You could not say anything vulgar or an operator would come on the phone line and remind you that your license could be in jeapordy. I could relate to that.

These were a precursor to the cell phone of today.


We had to get a cell phone in the early 1990's. It was supposed to be reimbursed by the company my wife worked for, however due to her illness she had to quit work and we were stuck with this big ol' phone and the bills for a year. The phone was actually built for a car. But we didn't want it installed. It was the size of a box of tissues and weighed about 2 pounds. It had a receiver/headset connected by the usual coiled phone cord to the base. The key pad was on the back side of the receiver. This was definitely nothing you could carry in your purse or pocket. Once again it was rented and not owned. Each minute on the phone cost over a dollar. It did not get much use.

This brings us to the modern cell phone that is tiny and relatively cheap to use. No need to explain. I do not think anyone misses the rotary phone.

Although it is surprising, but there are many rotary phones still in use.

Zorro Was A Democrat

I heard a discussion today in which Neo-Cons were critized. I had no idea what was a Neo Con.

It turns out to be the new derogatory buzz word that means neo-conservatives. Being conservative these days is apparently a vice. I did not know that.

As the discussion progressed Barak Obama's spin on social security tax came up. First he said he would raise social security taxes.

When that flag was not saluted the senator announced he was merely joshing and said no, he would not raise social security tax if elected, but he promised two chickens in every pot.

In 1958 a new TV show debuted. Zorro. There was no one cooler than Zorro. He rode his black steed named Toranado. He wore all black clothing and a black mask. Those shiny black boots were killer. Plus he was an incredible swordsman and a wonderful whip...uh...what ever you call a guy that has prowess with a whip. A whippersnapper? Wearing all black clothing worked out great as no one had color TV in 1958.

The Commandante

Zorro's nemisis was the Commandante, the provincial governor of old California. The wealthy Dons had to pay taxes to the Commandante and so did the peasants.

Truth be told, Zorro was a wealthy Don. Being a Don was good. He along with his daddy both had to pay tax. How is this unlike today? Zorro didn't actually pay the tax. His alter ego, Don Diego was the tax filer.

The Commandante took in the tax, but didn't actually spend the money on infrastructure, civic improvement, peasant welfare and job training. This did not set well with Zorro's concept of tax and spend or with his program for redistribution of the wealth.

Zorro was an early proponate of economic justice. So he set up his four step program.

1. Rob tax collectors at every opportunity.

2. Attack the Commandante by making unwarranted public claims against him, his family, his staff and supporters.

3. Redistribute the wealth by dividing the stolen tax monies equally among every peasant, even though none of them did a pesos worth of work for it.

4. Carve Z's into every available flat surface.

As a child of six I thought this was pretty cool. As a man of 56 that has worked hard all his life paid my share of taxes and would prefer to just take care of my own family.

I'd like to punch that Zorro bastard squarely in the nose.

Hot Dog Dreams

The Hippies had it all wrong.


Dr. Timothy Leary was way off the mark.

Today's Clubbers are foolish. You do not need mind bending drugs like LSD or Extacy to reach a state of altered consciousness.

All you need are Hot Dogs. I'll tell you what, 2 Weinies on a bun with mustard and relish taken 3 hours before bedtime will result in dreams stranger than anything Franz Kafka could write.

For instance, in last night's dream I was at work talking with a customer about his retirement plan and explaining the reason for losses in his account due to market volatility and the next thing I know I'm in a large suite sitting on a sofa with my wife.

We discover we are at the residence of former WLW talk show host Gary Burbank. His new wife is seated next to me and his 10 month old son is playing on the carpet at my feet. The child has an unusually large head that is covered with a crop of blond hair that appears to have been cut by placing a bowl over the boy's massive noggin and trimming around the edges. Burbank doesn't say too much and his wife says even less. The baby rolls over and indicates he needs a new diaper.

His mom assists in the change. I discuss a former WLW personality and mentioning that I used to be an acquaintance of Andy MacWilliams and Dusty Rhodes.

The next thing I know I am walking through a filthy parking garage in downtown Cincinnati and I am looking for my car. The garage is huge and covered in grease and dirt from all the automobile exhaust. I keep walking and walking. I don't find my car, but I do find my old car. I can see outside and it is dusk of a cold fall day.

My guitar and amplifier

I'm relieved that my guitar and amplifier are safe in the back seat. I find myself back at work on the phone once again explaining that market volatility is normal and asking the fellow if he has seen the price of gas lately.

All the while I am hoping to go to the restroom soon since I'm feeling queasy and bloated. At that point I find that I am still in bed and tell myself to wake up. Then I scurry on down the hall to the bathroom.

Yes sir, Hot Dogs are great but like all mind altering substances they do have their consequences.