My High School Graduation - June 6, 1958

I was ambivalent about getting out of high school. I liked the social part of it: attending ball games, the after-game dances (at which I never danced); and the teen canteen that opened for a couple hours after school and on weekends. I belonged to the Hi-Y, ran cross-country and high jumped during track season. The municipal swimming pool attracted me during summers. I swam nearly every night those last two years. Brian Cossell, the number-one high jumper on the track team (I was a distant second), and I were into diving, and chanced a number of fancy flips off the three meter board.

The canteen was my favorite during school session. The place occupied the second floor of a building on the corner of Buckeye and Walnut of the town square. The canteen opened its doors for a couple hours after school. I started going there in my junior year after Don left for college. It lay only two blocks from the Moose Lodge, where Mom and Dad worked, and closed about the time they headed home. The canteen, one big room on the second floor, had a free jukebox, a dance floor (on which I never danced); card tables, ping pong, and a couple of snooker tables. I was pretty good with a pool cue, and so was often sought after as a snooker partner.

I was indifferent about academics though. I took four years of math and science, and even had a semester of Latin before deciding, rightfully, that it was a waste of time. I enrolled because a high school counselor told me Latin was required to get into college. That might have been the case a century earlier, but colleges had moved on, but apparently failed to inform my counselor. The misinformation was an example of the crap we were often fed in the 1950’s. I have no memory of ever taking a book home to study, but still managed a grade point average placing me in the upper half of the class (barely). I didn’t get interested in learning until I’d been in college for a couple years. If the university had been anything like high school, I’d have probably dropped out, but something seemed to have sparked my interest about then.

I remember few specifics about my high school graduation in 1958. We held it in the gymnasium, a facility that filled eight thousand seats during basketball games. I don’t remember if it were at capacity that particular night, but four hundred and fifty of us graduating seniors sat on folding chairs on the main floor while proud parents, family and friends perched above to watch a tradition that probably hadn’t changed for generations. Six family members attended for me: Mom, Dad, brother Don, Grandma Frank, and my Uncle and Aunt, Joe and Gail Frank, who had come up from Connersville for the happy occasion.

Each row of graduates stood on cue and filed to the right forming a long line that snaked its way onto the makeshift stage. A dignitary clasped each graduate’s right hand as he thrust a diploma into the left, while uttering a perfunctory “congratulations“. The procession continued across the stage, off the far side, and back to the assigned beginning. I managed to hook a size twelve shoe on the leg of one of the folding chairs as I entered our row and was mortified to see the chair wobble along in front of me for a couple of noisy steps. The main speaker droned on for period, but none of his imparted wisdom lodged as it passed between my ears. And then it was over. We went home.

There were probably graduation parties, but I had not heard of any and received no invites. I wasn’t exactly a loner, but I was extremely shy. I went to most of the events but tended to hang in the background - the proverbial wallflower. I remember years later, at our twentieth high school reunion, several told me they thought I was probably the most changed of the class - they remembered my shyness, of how I could turn crimson so easily.

But I had my own party that night. I recall being so pumped that I went out for a walk after midnight. It was one of those magic evenings in June with clear starry skies and shirt sleeve weather. I felt invigorated with the thought that I‘d crossed a major threshold of life. I walked over much of the town, fearlessly through Crown Point Cemetery, around the town square, south along Washington Street, by closed stores, by factories, and by dark houses. I walked alone through the world till the light of a new day began to glimmer.

The Hungry Men

I took a job at Graves Sheet Metal Company in Kokomo in June of 1966 after teaching the previous year at Smithville School in southern Indiana. The educational experience convinced me that I wanted nothing to do with that profession. So, at twenty-six years of age I found my life void of any immediate life goals, and decided to go adventuring in Europe. I applied for passport and a bought ships passage to Bilbao, Spain, and then took a job at Graves to make a little money before taking off in the fall.

The passport that was never used.

Bill Graves hired me to clean up the shop which was littered with scrap metal piled high behind and around various cutting machines. He had no janitorial service, and debris was threatening to envelop the place. The sheet metal workers’ union wage was to high to employ them for janitorial work, so I became the all-purpose handy-man hired to accomplish whatever odd job that might arise.

A small part of the building was occupied by a roofing firm, but the sheet metal business took up most of the space. The shop was housed in an old building, long and narrow, with a big overhead door at each end. There was an open loft on each side piled high, a segment of it stored sheet metal parts that had been fabricated but not used. The loft was a dust choking place to work on hot summer days, so I was thankful when that particular task came to completion. It took me several weeks to clean and organize the place.

Bill had six or eight journeymen working for him. They were a highly skilled bunch who produced duct work for heating and cooling systems, and also installed them. Most of the contracts were for work done for newly constructed buildings. I liked his crew right away, but I‘m not certain how they looked upon me, a college graduate, ex-teacher, grubbing around in attics, unloading sheet metal, and doing odd jobs. Journeymen went through rigorous training that used a lot of math in design of pieces they make. I was talking math with one of them and he ask me to calculate the square root of a number. I was almost finished when he stopped me and said he just wanted to know if I could really do it.

On one slow day I worked on a safe that sat in the office. It was a big heavy one standing three feet high, but useless because the door could not be shut and the mechanism was jammed. I played around with it, figured what was wrong, got it working, and changed the combination. That impressed everybody, and I was fairly well accepted after that. After all, I could do something practical.

Once I finished the job I expected to be let go, but Graves assigned me to work with Dutch Coady, his father-in-law. The work was more enjoyable after that as I got to go around town with Dutch who ran errands and delivered materials to work sites. Since he was the boss’s son-in-law he had more latitude and many of his errands could be better described as “government jobs”, that’s how he characterized them.

Dutch was an accomplished poker player, a reformed alcoholic, and active in the AA. From him I received advice in card playing and an eye opening introduction to the world of Alcoholics Anonymous. He was a jovial guy who seemed to know half the city residents. We often met people on the street who he would stop and talk to. Upon finishing, as we turned to walk away, he would say, his thumb jerking back toward the individual, “He’s an alcoholic”. “He” might be a lawyer on one occasion or a doctor the next. I began to wonder if half the people in town might not be alcoholics.

I accompanied him to several AA meetings, and when he went on “government jobs”, like taking a bottle to someone on a bender. Once he had me climb a long flight of stairs with him when he delivered booze and cigarettes to a couple in a run down apartment. I remember the guy wore a sweaty T-shirt and the woman stood in her petty coat - both strung out.  Dutch said there was no use trying to keep booze from anyone still bent on pursuing the addiction. They were going to drink one way or another, and it was safer to just take a bottle to them. He said they might consider quitting when they hit bottom, but nothing was certain about alcoholism.

Once when were on lunch break, just outside of the café, guy hit us up for money to get something to eat. Dutch invited him in telling him he‘d pop for lunch. The guy made some excuse about having a weak stomach and needed a special diet. To my surprise Dutch turned and headed on to the café. Inside he said, “If the son-of-a-bitch asked for money for a drink I‘d have given in to him“.

I learned something there. Since there was no hunger in America the only people on the streets to ask for money were alcoholics. Offer to buy them a meal. They won’t accept an invitation because they just want a drink. I never dreamed there were people who might really be hungry.

I’ve never been hungry, at least I’ve never known the gnawing emptiness that goes on for days or weeks. Mine was always of the pleasant kind with anticipation of a meal to be forthcoming. I wasn’t aware of anybody being hungry in this country as a cornucopia seemed to lie all around us, but events set me straight on a winter days in January of 1967.

Summer came to an end. Friends gave me a going- away party at which they presented me with a leather passport wallet, which I still have. But my adventure to Europe was postponed due to a war in Vietnam, and the fact that I had a record thirteen deferments granted by the local Draft Board. I made the mistake of asking the board if it was okay if I sailed for Europe. They said no, and I learned that there are times you don’t ask questions, do it and ask later. So in early winter I moved to Chicago to try my fortune in the “Big City”.

Life is faster in a big town. I once read of a study that determined people walked faster in big towns, that their speed of perambulating is directly proportional to the size of the city - the bigger, the faster they walk. I was from a relatively small city and it took a while to adapt, so my pace was slower and I often made eye contact with those coming toward me. I didn’t realize it for a time, but that behavior made me a target. People approached me to ask for money to get something to eat. It happened more often than I would have expected.

Thinking they were just drunks wanting a drink I’d answer as Gus would. If I were close to a restaurant, I’d invite them to a meal. To my surprise too many accepted. Usually I bought them a hotdog or a hamburger, but one old man stands out in my memory. Tall and thin, he was wearing a long overcoat and a mariner’s sock hat, his wrinkled skin as black as ancestors of slave ships not many generations before.

He ask me in front of an upscale cafeteria in the Near North. I told him I wouldn’t give him money, but I’d take him in for a meal. He accepted. We went in and I gave him a tray and told him to go on and pick what he wanted. The man humbly took it and went down the line selecting a healthy amount. I paid and we found a small table for two. I sat opposite him for a short while, now wishing I’d talked to him, but I’ve always been cautiously aware of the fine line that can exist between friendly curiosity and the nosy invasion of a person’s privacy.

I remember he was slathering butter on a bun when I decided it was time to go. I stood and put out my hand to shake his as I said goodbye. He surprised me by grabbing it with both of his and pressing it to his cheek; his eyes closed. It was emotionally moving to experience such gratitude. Embarrassed, I jerked it from his grasp and said, “Don’t do that”. I took my leave and turning away, noticed a woman at the opposite  table looking at me with an enigmatic smile.

I became like a big city person after that. I walked fast, kept my eyes trained on the sidewalk and never made eye contact. I couldn’t afford to feed all the people that were hungry.

Part 7 - Hazel's Last Years

Mom lived three more years. I was on my way for a visit in the spring of 1997 when I received a phone call upon getting into Los Angeles. It was Don. He told me that Jodi Spiegel, Ellie’s middle child from her first marriage, had died suddenly of a brain tumor. She had been having severe headaches for weeks. Don had helped raise Jodi and her two sisters since she was eight years old. They were still at the hospital, in shock, and not sure they would be able to pick me up as planned. I told them not to worry, I’d find my way, but they managed, and were waiting when I deplaned in San Diego.

 I stayed with Mom at her one-bedroom apartment. Her rental was in a small retirement community of four two-story buildings that enclosed a beautifully landscaped courtyard - rather charming. There were gates at each corner, one lead conveniently to a strip mall and grocery. Don and Ellie lived only a couple miles away.

The clan gathered at Don and Ellie’s place each evening during those sad days. The core group included more than a dozen people: Ellie’s surviving daughters, Stephanie and Susan, along with their families, her first husband, Jerry Spiegel, and Don‘s sons, Lee and Dennis Buckingham, who flew in from Indiana. They planned a memorial service for Jodi at Dog Beach in San Diego, a favorite of Jodi as she had often taken her dog there. It was an entertainment to see the dogs frolicking in the waves, seemingly with
out a care in the world. A pavilion was pitched on the beach, and the service consisted of friends and family taking turns telling remembrances of events that they had shared with Jodi.

 One evening, as I was helping Mom into the car to take her back to her apartment she let me know she would be interested in trying some pot. This was a bit of a surprise. She had been a smoker all her adult life, but never showed the lease interest in the stuff of Reefer Madness. She had, no doubt, smelled the characteristic aroma of the weed wafting through the group that night, and I suspect her dormant curiosity became aroused. Maybe she had always been curious, but the opportunity had never presented itself at a convenient time. But she was in California now, land of liberalism, so why not join in. Besides, what did it matter at that stage of her life. I told her I would see if someone could help her.

Jerry Spiegel was known to be a connoisseur, and the next evening he presented Mom with a joint. She immediately took a puff, inhaled deeply and started coughing. She coughed for several minutes, loud and hurtful hacks, with big tears rolling down her cheeks. She never finished her joint, never got to experience a marijuana high. Most everybody smiled sheepishly, and I think all felt sorry for her, though the sympathy might have followed different paths of reasoning.

Mom never got into the California niche, once admitting to me of feeling overwhelmed by the move, and not able to make herself get involved. She was depressed and withdrawn.

There were plenty of activities at the senior complex. Don said they passed the community room on one occasion where a number of residents were playing cards and kibitzing. It looked like a lot of fun, but they were on their way to dinner, and didn’t stop. He regretted not taking her in as it was a perfect opportunity to introduce her to the new neighbors as Mom was not the type to boldly go in on her own.

Mom stayed in the apartment for a little over a year before Don moved her into a care facility. She had a series of small strokes that robbed her of short-term memory. Don was devoted in his caretaking, going over every day to spend time with her. I visited a last time a few months before she died, and took our newly adopted boy, John. We visited at the hospice. Mom was confined to a wheel chair. We strolled with her out the walk around the facility. She stopped to ask about the name of a flower along the path‘s edge. Don said she asked that same question every day. Mom died a month later on May 5th, 1999, four and a half months short of 86.

Part 6 - Hazel's Life Without Her Friend Bob

Bob had a stroke the next year and was confined to a nursing home. I visited Mom right after the stroke. Mom was busy; she had a mission. She went to the nursing home every day, brought clean cloths, and stayed with him till evening. She was devoted. They had become very close over the years. Bob sat in a chair resting his head on a table with his face turned to one side. He was helpless, wasn’t enjoying life, and had run his trapline for the last time. He lifted his head off the table only one time. He made the effort to look at me and attest that it sucked, and then laid his head down again. Bob died a month or so later.

Mom was alone and very much lost again. She got sick and brother Don took a bus from San Diego, getting to Kokomo in time to put her in the hospital. When she improved he loaded her in her car and drove back to California. I flew in and we had a conference as to what should be done. It was evident that Mom, at nearly eighty-three, could no longer live by herself. We decided she would sell the house and move to California to be near Don and Ellie.

Don took Mom back to Indiana, and in three months we met again to clear her house, arrange shipping for what she wanted to keep, and put the rest up for auction. The attic and basement were full of fifty years of living. We found curtains stored in the attic that had hung in our bedroom in the 1950’s. Grandma Frank died in 1968, but her clothes were still hanging in a stand-alone closet in the basement. We rented one of those big trash containers, the type you see at construction sites, had it set at the back of driveway, and the proceeded to fill it.

Most of the stuff was in the attic. I’d go up, rummage around till I found something interesting, and bring it down to the driveway. Sometimes we’d decide it should go into the trash bin. If it passed muster Don would clean it (often washing it with the garden hose), and store it in the garage.

The auction was held on Sunday, September 29, 1996. The auctioneer lined tables along the length of the driveway, and filled them with smaller items. Larger things were carried from the garage when their turn came. Lots of people showed up to buy lots of interesting artifacts. One of the last things auctioned was Bob’s car, a late model Chrysler. Mom had driven it to the nursing home everyday after his stroke, and he indicated that he wanted her to have it. We got the title out realized that Bob had never signed it over to her. I handed it to the auctioneer, he looked at it a moment, took out his pen and forged Bob’s name on it. The auction was a complete success.
GO TO: Part 7 - Hazel's Last Years

Part 5 - Hazel and Friend Bob Visit Alaska

Mom and Bob Eschelman at Portage Glacier, Alaska, 1993 

Mom believed mightily in fate. What was to be, would be, so when a direction was set she generally followed course. I think this was the result of her having been the youngest sibling in a family of three older brothers. She never got the chance to be the lead dog while growing up, and since Dad was older by a year and a half the situation continued into their marriage. 

Bob, Mom and Mary at Garage Sale in Anchorage, Ak, 1993

In 1992 Mom and Bob planned a trip to visit Don and Ellie in California by car, and then to fly up to Alaska to see us. I think she had misgivings about the road trip; probably because of Bob’s drinking. She called when they were about to head west. She seemed subdued, and when we hung up she said “goodbye” in a tone of such finality that I wondered if she thought she might be speaking to me for the last time. They made the trip without incident.

Mom and Bob at neighbors for a Salmon Bake

In August they flew into Anchorage. Mary and I waited for them to deplane at the gate. The passengers filed out, and we stood there as the last trickled by. Then Mom came out trailed by a flight attendant shoving Bob in a Wheel chair. He suddenly rose from the chair, tripped on the foot rest, and fell flat on his face. He was drunker than a skunk, and Mom was beside herself with anger and embarrassment. We got him back in the chair. The attendant informed me that if I didn’t take responsibility she would have to turn him over to airport security. I was tempered to decline the option, but agreed to see after him. It seems Bob had bought two bottles of Absolute Vodka just before departing the Minneapolis Airport. Mom hide them in her purse on boarding, and Bob preceded to have a four thousand mile party.

Mom and Bob in boat returning to Cabin, 1993

I no longer recall how we got to the baggage claim on the lower level, but we soon found the designated carrousel with weary travelers crowded in front of a conveyor laded with rotating baggage. Mom recognized her bags, but couldn’t identify Bob’s so I maneuvered him in behind the first row of people. He spotted his sliding down the shoot, and bolted out of the chair, dived past the people in front and landed on the conveyor belt. He lay there clutching his suitcase in triumph as the conveyor transported him toward the exit. I hesitated for a moment but then extracted him and his luggage before they disappeared behind the curtain.

Bob and Mom at Window all Day

We took Bob to the house, filled him with coffee, and put him to bed. He slept on a fold-out couch in the recreation room, a large open area downstairs. A big wood stove stood near the couch/bed. I pulled the curtains to darken the room. It was August but daylight still lingered long into evenings That proved to be a mistake, because Bob got up in the middle of the night needing to take a potty break. In the alcoholic infused confusion he tripped, fell over the stove, bruised a rib and skinned his nose. He was quite a sight for the next week, but continued to smile in that uncomplaining way even though we limited him to beer for the rest of the stay.

Bob and Mom at window at night

I took them to the cabin in Seldovia for a week. Mostly I remember them sitting at the table before the big picture window, Bob on the left, Mom on the right. They would sit there for hours with heads turned toward the window, chins propped on a hands supported by elbows on the table. The tide would flow from high to low in six hours, sometimes with as much as a twenty-seven foot change in level. The high tide flooded the cove climbing up the banks to where tips of tree limbs dipped into the ocean’s surface. Then it would drain exposing the sea floor with mud flats extending out for hundreds of feet from the shore. They could never get enough of watching it.

Bob, Mom, Joe and Mary at Farewell Celebration, 1993

Mary had planned a garage sale on our return. Those events were always more like parties at our house. It was a big success, lots of friends showed up to meet the soon to be departing couple. Mount Spur blew its top the day before they were to fly home. Volcanic ash covered everything and their departure was delayed for a couple days. Bob seemed more anxious about the interruption, and was more eager to depart than we were to see him go. Things ended fairly well as it was hard to stay mad at Bob.
GO TO: Part 6 - Hazel's Life Without Her Friend Bob

Part 4 - Hazels' Life After She Renewed an Old Friendship

It turned out that Mom’s “boyfriend” was Bob Eschelman, a person I‘d known for many years. I’d met him in the sixties when I bartended at the Moose Lodge, and Bob was one of the two full-time bartenders, working there for many years, possibly till his retirement. He and his wife had been at Dad’s funeral. She died a couple years after that.

Bob was a jovial fellow with a mischievous smile perpetually pasted on his face. He liked to drink, was fun loving, and partied till his dying day. I went with him on one occasion when he run his “trap lines”. That is what he called his daily round of visits to a string of local clubs: VFW, American Legion, Eagles and the Moose Lodge. He had a drink at each one, visited with the bartender and fellow patrons, and then went on to the next. Bob never appeared to be drunk, but did manifest a watery-eyed glow through most of each day. He had a spontaneous nature, and didn’t seem to put much thought into contemplating the consequences of his actions, he just did them.

Mom told me that Bob grew up only child of a prominent family in Anderson, Indiana, hinting that he had been a bit spoiled. He was a wiry little guy, a veteran of World War II, and had served in Europe through most of it. I remember something about the “Battle of the Bulge“. He might have been a prisoner-of-war, though I’m not certain of that. I often wondered if the war might have had something to do with his laissez-faire approach to life, and the uncomplaining toughness that I liked about him .

One time in 1989, after one of my visits to, Mom and I had planned to fly to California to visit my brother and his wife, Don and Ellie. Bob volunteered to drive us to the Indianapolis airport. He arrived a bit late to pick us up, but there was still time to comfortably make it. Kokomo is a long narrow town, measuring two miles on its east-west axis and eight miles north-south. Mom’s house sat on the eastern edge. When Bob pulled out of the driveway he turned west toward the center of town instead of east which would have taken us the half-block to the by-pass and quickly around town. He drove to the center, turned south weaving his way through perceived shortcuts, and finally reached the south edge of town and open road.

It was then that Mom realized she had forgotten her airline ticket. We had to go back to the house. Bob could have taken the by-pass back but retraced his way back through town. Mom retrieved her ticket and Bob started back through town, but I intervened. Now we were running late so Bob sped down the road only to be stopped and ticketed. That took another ten minutes. It did not seem probable but we did make the airport on time.
GO TO: Part 5: Hazel and Her Friend, Bob, Visit Alaska

Part 3 - Hazel's Life after Dad Died in 1985

Dad died in 1985. Mom was 71 years old, my age as I write this. She was alone for the first time in her life, and in shock for sometime afterward. Don and Ellie had recently lost their farm in Wisconsin, had moved to New Orleans, and arrived there only a few days before his passing. They dropped everything and headed to Kokomo. I took a day to arrange for a substitute before boarding a plane for home.

Mom lived another fourteen years without Dad. I think several of those years were pretty lonely especially the first and final few. She visited Don and Ellie in New Orleans, and came up to Alaska, but was kind of a lost sole in both places. She had lived in Kokomo since 1937, but life around town seemed alien to her after he passed.

The trouble with living a long life is that you out-live most everyone else. One of her friends sat in the front row at Dad’s funeral. I no longer remember her name, Bernice maybe, but she and Mom had been the best of buddies since the sixties, did a lot of things together. The woman had emphysema, and breathed with difficulty. I heard that she passed a short time later.

Mom was the last of her generation to go. She outlived her three brothers, and Dad’s four siblings - family members of whom I’d known from my beginning.

Three or four years passed. I visited for a week every year of so, cleaned gutters and did needed repairs around the house. We tried the Senior Center for lunch a couple times, but she didn’t seem to know any one there. We went to a Unitarian Church service. She liked it and continued to attend till summer recess, but never went back when they commenced in the fall. She lived in her bedroom with the television on 24/7. On visits I often crept into the room to turn off the blaring TV after she had gone to sleep. The TV was her constant companion in those days. The bedroom and kitchen became all she needed and were the only rooms she went into.

Then things changed for her in the next year. One night she called me, said she had been out with a couple old friends, a rare occasion. The three had a couple of drinks and Mom’s voice possessed a bit of an uncharacteristic slur. We talked on for a while, then the phone line went silent for a short spell, and then Mom blurted out, “What would you think if I got myself a boy friend?” In-a-way she was asking my permission, would it be alright with me? If I had said something like, “You don’t want to do that.”, she would have dropped the subject and I’d have never heard anything more about it. I said, “That sounds like a good idea to me”. I consider that to have been one of the wisest and most thoughtful statements I’ve made in my life.
GO TO: Part 4 - Hazel's Life After She Renewed an Old Friendship

Part 2 - Hazel's Life in the 1940's and 1950's

Mom took care of Don and I through our toddler years, but went back to work at the Globe factory in Kokomo before the war ended. The factory made parachutes, and was only four or five blocks from the house. I still remember the factory whistle sounding its sad low tone at noon every day.

She ironed clothes at Riggs Dry Cleaners shop for several years in the early fifties. It was a true sweat shop in a small building behind the Riggs’ house. We picked her up at 5pm in the evening and the shop was sometimes so hot that I could not stay inside. She took some courses at the local business school, typing and bookkeeping, and went to work for the Moose Lodge as Dad’s assistant in 1953. She worked in the Moose office until she retired some twenty years later.

Mom was five feet two and weighed 108 pounds. I’m not certain why I remember such an exact weight, but it has stuck in my mind these many years. She was slim, and had auburn colored hair. When I was young she had rounded shoulders; the condition would be diagnosed as scoliosis nowadays. The rounded shoulders became more pronounced as the years passed. Near the end of her life her back was curved into a classic hunchback. It came about so gradually that I don’t think it much concerned her.

Her private time was early in the day. I remember hearing her pad around the house at four and five on many a morning. She had two or three hours to herself, and I still don’t know what she was doing, not for certain. The Kokomo Tribune, like many newspaper of its day, was an evening edition, so she had no morning paper to read. She made coffee, and probably did some light house cleaning, or laundry, but mostly, I think it was simply a private time for her. The rest of the family was up by seven, had breakfast, and on our way to work or school by eight.

We gathered at home again around five or six. Grandma Frank usually made supper, and by seven the dishes were done and Mom laid down on the living room couch to watch some television. Sometimes, early on, she would spoon with Dad as he lay at the back of the couch and she cradled in front. Other times she crashed alone, but she invariably fell asleep and missed most of the nights TV shows. She’d awake, sleepy eyed, about ten or eleven and go off to bed. Five or six hours later the pattern would repeat, and you could again hear quiet padding about the house.

Mom was a smoker. I don’t know when she started, but I suspect she began in her teens. She came from tobacco country, and I expect she saw nearly everyone around her smoking while she was growing up. Phillip Morris cigarettes were her choice when I was young, and later she switched to Kools and Salems. As a kid I heard her hacking cough almost every morning. She smoked to nearly the end of her life, but emphysema eventually destroyed her lungs.

A low point for the family came the year after I graduated from high school. Dad had an affair with a divorced woman who was affiliated with the Moose Lodge. Mom got suspicious and had me drive her by the woman’s house on more than one occasion. One night, as we drove through the alley behind the house Mom spotted Dad’s car in the drive way.

She had me stop and then left the car, picked up a board in the offending woman's yard and broke a window in the back of her house. She then proceeded around the house smashing one window after another. I watched in stunned disbelief as Mom sent shock waves of smashed glass resounding through the neighborhood. I had only a vague notion as to why she was having me drive her, and no idea about what she planned to do. Dad came out about the time she reached the front. He put her in his car and drove away.

 A day or so later two police officers stopped by at midnight with a warrant and took her to jail. It was the worst time our family ever had. I felt used by Mom for dragging me into it, and I was angry at Dad for the betrayal. It was not pleasant around the house for a while, and I never did hear the outcome. I assume someone in the family paid for the broken windows. I do not love them any less for what happened. There was a lot more good than here ever was bad.
GO TO: Part 3 - Hazel's Life After Dad died in 1985

The Life of Hazel (Frank) Buckingham (1913-1999)

Mom always claimed she would never live long enough to see Halley’s Comet, but 1986 came and went, and she was still here. She said she would never make the Millennium, and proved herself right on that one - she died Cinco De Mayo, 1999. Mom often saw the darker side of things, so her prediction of an early death, at 85, was understandable. She was a nice person, even gentle, but her outlook was fatalistic. She accepted life as something of which she had little control, but was frustrated by her powerlessness. Mom often groused against the injustices and stupidities of the world, and she especially loved to hate politicians.

Happiness is a phoenix with a short life span. There were many times when she was buoyed with a smile or laughing at a joke. She loved to play Euchre and I remember her sitting in a foursome at the Moose Lodge on many occasions. She worked crossword puzzles, and read lots of books. She could be on a high for weeks, but the mythical bird of happiness would eventually crash and burn. She did not plunge into an emotional darkness, but simply leveled off flat after a shallow dive. A lot of people who are depressed can be irritable but it wasn't her way. I never recognized it then but now realize she probably suffered mild depression most of her life.

Mom was born in a railroad car in eastern Kentucky on September 17, 1913. She went by Hazel Mae Frank, but her birth certificate indicated that she was "Mary Frank". She didn't know why that name was on it, and was never given an explanation. Mom once told me that she always felt like an outsider in her own birth family. 

She had three older brothers, Art, Charlie and Joe. The family returned to Catawba Kentucky shortly after she was born. It was her parents hometown, and both their families still lived there. Her maternal grandparents, Charles and Julia Jacobs, died the year before she was born, but her Pop’s parents, George and Mary Frank, were still alive.

She grew up dirt poor because her Pop too often drank up his paycheck. He had a good job with the railroad, but was a bit crazy and several of Mom’s stories about his escapades are hair raising. Catawba was an L&N Railroad creation. There wasn’t much to it then, and it’s not even a ghost town now. The old town is gone, the Jacobs family home was razed years ago, and there is new house sitting where it stood. Their graves lay in a far corner of its backyard.

The family left Catawba in about 1919 and spent a couple years outside Cincinnati before moving on to Connersville, Indiana when she was nine. She quit school after her sophomore year, and was working at the Auburn Auto Company when she met Dad in 1935. They married in June of 1936 and moved to Kokomo, Indiana the following year

GO TO: Part 2 - Hazel's Life in the 1940's and 1950's

William R. Buckingham - Part 6, Dad's last Resume

I found the following in Dad’s papers. He had completed it in about 1981, maybe for a job resume. I think it gives a good first-hand synopsis of his life in his own words.

Personal, Educational, and Employment History of William R. Buckingham

I. Personal
a) Lives at 1628 E. Sycamore St., Kokomo, and have lived at that address for 31 years.
b) Married with two grown sons. Both are graduates of Indiana University.
c) Born in Connersville, Indiana on May 27, 1912.
d) Telephone No. is 452-2483
e) Social Security No. is 304-12-8201
f) No conviction record.

II. Education
a) Graduate of Connersville High School in 1930. Third in class of 110. Course pursued was College Preparatory.
b) Received B.S. degree from Ball State Teachers College in 1934. Majors were Mathematics, Physics, Chemistry, Physiology, and General Science.
c) In Summer 1937, started work on Masters Degree in Education. It was never completed.
d) Other undergraduate courses were taken at Indiana University, Butler U. and Yale U. III.

Employment History
a) Davison Enameling; Connersville; general laborer. 1934-1936.
b) Harrisburg High School; near Connersville. Teacher of math and science; also basketball coach; 1936-1937.
c)Clay Township High School (Howard Co.), now Northwestern; Teacher of math and science; also basketball coach; 1937-1939.
d) Omar Baking Co. Door to door route salesman in Kokomo; 1939-1940.
e) Stellite Company; Routine Chemist; 1940-1942.
f) Civil Service; Instructor in electronic engineering at Yale University for the Army Air Force; 1942 - November 1944.
g) Delco Radio; Jr Electrical Engineer; Nov 1944 to Nov 1946.
h) Loyal Order of Moose; Kokomo; Secretary and Manager; 1946 -1971.
i) Substitute teacher in High Schools of Howard County; math and science; 1971-1972.
j)Western High School, Russiaville; teacher of math and physics; 1972-1975.
k) Since 1975; Substitute teacher in math, science, and Industrial arts at Haworth, Western, and Northwestern.
THE END

William R. Buckingham - Part 5, The Day Dad Died

Mom called in the late morning of April 20, 1985. There was a momentary silence after I said hello, then she said, “This is your Mom. I have some bad news. You father died this morning.” Her voice was matter-of-fact; her words, steely hard, without emotion. There was another silence as my mind fought to reject the meaning of her words. I don’t remember her saying anything more and I tried to fill the empty silence with reassuring words that meant nothing. I ask if anyone was with her. I don’t remember if she answered. I told her I’d get home as soon as I could arrange it.

Mom was in shock. They had been married for nearly fifty years, had shared a life through hard times and good - the Great Depression, World War II, raising two boys, working together at the Moose Lodge, vacations, travel, and the usual bouts of marital strife. Life as she knew it had come to an abrupt end.

Dad passed on a beautiful Saturday morning. He was in the front yard, on the west edge of their house when his heart failed, and he laid down on the grassy yard to die. Mom saw him laying there a short time later. He was on his back with his right arm laying over his chest, his left knee, bent slightly and pointing upward. He looked like he might have been napping, but Mom said she knew he was dead as soon as she got out to him.

I told my classes on Monday that I’d be leaving the next day, and would be out for the rest of the week because my Dad died. One of the students raised his hand and asked if I had been close to my father. I said, “No, not really”, and wondered immediately why I answered in such a way. It wasn’t a truthful answer; it was accurate. In truth, I had a good father-son relationship with Dad; it was accurate in that we had lived 4000 miles apart for the last eighteen years.

Dad was short by a month of turning seventy-three. I’m writing this when I’m a bit short of turning that age myself, so it seems to me that he died too young. I’d say that he had plans for things he did not get done.

“Buck”, as he was called by almost everyone (even Mom), would have described himself as a practical man, but his nature was positive - he saw the glass as half full. He seemed to always have a project going: planting a garden, planning a trip, or repairing a radio/TV. He was always ready to demonstrate his latest culinary discovery such as a new pizza recipe, or a Ruben sandwich.

A couple days later I stood before his casket during the funeral, reached out and touched his hand. It was stone cold and just as hard. It wasn’t him. He wasn’t there.
GO TO: Part 6, Dad's Resume

William R. Buckingham - Part 4, The Father I Knew

Dad was not a reader. I do not remember him ever picking up a book. As far as I know he never read a novel, a biography or a history book. Books were expensive and paperbacks did not become plentiful until well after he reached adulthood, so I doubt that there were many books in his home while he was growing up. Mom said he claimed that reading weakened a persons eyes. That was just an excuse. He simple was not into reading - other than consulting reference books. His was not an introspective or contemplative nature.

He was more of a hands on guy, a practical man - the original do-it-yourselfer. The first project I remember him working on was the remodeling of the kitchen on Lafountain Street. I was only five or six, but remember him standing between the floor joists while working on that project. He and another guy moved an inside wall of the house, maybe at the same time. I think the wall was in Don and my bedroom, they moved it over a couple feet, but that memory is very vague. He also did electrical rewiring of houses, both our own and others. Mom said he and Uncle Joe did some original wiring of several older houses in Connersville before they moved to Kokomo. When we bought the “Buckingham Palace” (another story), Dad directed and worked with Don and I in redoing the whole place.

I'm not absolutely certain, but I don’t think Dad believed in God - definitely not the Hereafter. The only occasions he attended churches were at marriages and funerals - mainly funerals. I don’t recall him ever speaking harshly about any religion, place of worship, or holy book. He expressed neither negative nor positive opinions on the subject. I remember him saying only one thing about the “Afterlife”. It was something like, “There is none. You die. Your body rots. That’s it.” The statement might have shocked me had he related the thought when I was at a younger, more tender age, but I was in my mid-twenties by then, and somewhat insulated against such radical ideas. He was the only atheist I ever met that did not seem to be angry about it.

In a way he was satisfied with his level of knowledge and understanding of the world and felt no need to seek anything more. That is not to say something new would not grab his interest. I got an Apple II computer in 1978 and showed Dad a little about it when he visited a couple years later. It was the type of thing that was right up his alley. He played around with it for several days, and could have gotten deeply involved, but computers were still very basic and expensive in those days. I have often thought of Dad as being the last Victorian. This is because he seemed so satisfied and certain with the progress that was taking place in his time. The momentum of the Industrial Revolution reached steam engine force during the Victorian Age and the movers and shakers of that era seemed complacent in their certainty. They knew what was important; they knew what they wanted; and they knew how to get it. Dad was born a few years after Queen Victoria died.

I grew up in a period when, after the war, the American economic engine ran full throttle. Progress and positive attitude seemed to be the rule, and Dad exemplified it. He had a background in math, physics, and chemistry, and he felt confident in that knowledge. He knew what he knew, and he knew a lot… and that was enough for him. Lastly, I think Dad was a would-be adventurer. He and I went up into northern Manitoba fishing in 1964 (another story), and I remember him talking on our drive home. He spoke of life experiences forming the memories we hold on to, and that’s what life was all about. There was a part of him that craved adventure. After college he hoboed/hitch-hiked to California and back on his own. Mom told the story of when he brought some papers for her to sign during the war - while we were living in Connecticut. He wanted to volunteer for a dangerous mission to parachute into occupied France, set up a two-way-radio for members of the French Resistance, show them how to work it, and then find his way out - probably with the help of the Resistance. She would not sign the papers.Brother Don told me once that he thought Dad had a pride in me because I was leading an adventurers life that he would have liked to have experienced. Mom and Dad visited me in Seldovia in 1975 when I was commercial fishing halibut with a friend (yet, another story). Dad was so taken by the place that he applied for a teaching job and almost got it. He wistfully said he wished he had come to Alaska years ago. Mom retorted that he could not have been pried out of Indiana back then.

GO TO: Part 5, The Day Dad Died

William (Buck) R. Buckingham - Part 3, The Hobo

On June 1st of 1935 Dad began one of the great adventures of his life. He had just graduated from Ball State teachers college, and for want of a little adventrue, started to hitch-hike and hobo across the country. Mom once said that he kept a journal about the trip but destroyed it after Don and I were born because he didn’t want us to see it.

I don’t know why he told her that. I found it in the attic years later, and there were no skeletons in his closet. The journal was written in an old composition booklet from his recently finished college days. The first four or five pages were a combination of notes from a math class, names and addresses of a dozen fellow students, and doodles. He then began his journal.

Dad’s itinerary shows he made it to California and back in just thirty-three days. It started out with a list of where he stayed each night. Many entries refer to “box car”, so he apparently was in transit on those nights.  He wrote quite a lot on the first two days of his trek, but sadly it ends there. He added nothing more other than the list of places he stayed at each night.

The following is a lightly edited version of what he wrote.

Saturday, June 1, 1935 - Box car in Greencastle, Indiana.
Sunday, June 2 - St. Louis Monday, June 3 - Kansas City, MO
Tuesday, June 4 - Junction City, KS
Wednesday, June 5 - Driving
Thursday, June 7 thru June 9 - Denver (Probably stayed with Aunt Lelah Buckingham)
Monday, June 10 - Box car
Tuesday, June 11 - Salt Lake City, UT
Wednesday, June 12 - Box car
Thursday, June 13 thru June 19 - Maryville, CA (Stayed with brother, George Buckingham.)
Thursday, June 20 - Fresno, CA Friday, June 21 - Long Beach, CA
Saturday, June 22 and 23 - San Diego, CA
Sunday, June 24 - Yuma, AZ
Monday, June 25 thru June 27 - Box car
Friday, June 28 - Tucumcari, NM
Saturday, June 29 - Amarillo, TX
Sunday, June 30 - CCC Camp
Monday, July 1 - East St. Louis, MO
Tuesday, July 2 - Indianapolis, IN
Wednesday, July 3 - Home

“June 1. Started today. 1st ride took me to Milton - Fellow had another hitch-hiker. A guy in a milk truck picked us up next (Fellow hitch-hiker and myself), and took us to Dublin as he was only going to Cambridge. He was just one of those helpful hands.
 
Baking truck stalled. Mechanic too dumb to fix it - I fixed the fuel pump for fellow who was very pleased, and gave me two pies which I put in my pocket as I was not very hungry at the time. Got my clothes greasy! I next got a ride into Greenfield in a stock truck with neighbor Earl Abernathy. He gave me some donuts. They also went into my pockets.
 
I didn’t have to wait very long in Greenfield as I was soon picked up by a drug salesman and I was very glad when he took me clear thru Indianapolis to some small town on the other side. And who do you suppose picked me up there? No one but my teacher, Billy Crone, who took me about 5 miles out in the country where he left me - out in the dark. At last I got another ride, this time with a couple of fellows going to Greencastle, although it was out of my way. They were a cheerful lot - told me about a pal of theirs who had served on the notorious Georgia chain gang because they had caught him hitch-hiking thru that state. They advised me to catch a freight out of Greencastle and were so obliging to even take me down to the yards.
 
Thought I would catch myself a “side-door” Pullman in Terra Haute that night and inquiries told me that one would be thru the yards in about two hours. Well I got into an empty box car and laid down to wait - That’s all.”

“June 2nd - I was awakened by a freight train pulling out but I was too late. I got up and walked the tracks a distance along an upgrade so I could easily catch the next one because it would be going slower uphill. I laid down under a tree with my little suit case as a pillow and went to sleep.

Again I was awakened by a freight train pulling out, but it was day light now so I hopped on this one. I saw a hobo riding just ahead of me so I ran up and started to talk to him. The first thing I learned from him was that I was on the wrong train - this train was headed south.

It was a rough old road but it seemed to be plenty fast. I road upon the top, and after a short time it started to rain. The fellow bo (hobo) was pretty friendly after he found that it was my first experience. He explained where the “dicks” would be found; mostly at the division yards. I met my first “dick” in Bloomington. It was raining like hell and he ordered me out of my dry place and out of the yard. It sure was raining and I stood under a tree just outside the yard. Although there were none there at the time, it was a bo’s jungle. As soon as the train gave the hi-ball (two sharp blasts of the whistle) I made across the yard for it. I had been told of this by my fellow “bo”. I stayed with this freight until I came to the town in southern Indiana where the B&O lines crossed the Marmon lines. (I was on the Marmon). It was not yet noon when I arrived here - My first thought was to clean up, particularly to shave, but I didn’t care to spend the money for a hotel.

I went out to the yards and there a “brakie” showed me where I could get some water. He was real friendly after he found that I wanted to clean. He even let me use his own private wash room. Well, I went down town and got something to eat. I sure was hungry. That afternoon I met several bos down around the railroad track. They all seemed to be gambling - using the old army game. One fellow seemed crazy. They all told me how hard the “dicks” were out west.

That afternoon I saw passenger trains “blinded” - that is, to ride right in back of the engine. It looked real good and fast riding to me, so I “blinded” the next passenger train going west. Three CCC boys had already “blinded” it , but they were just going a short distance. They were just kids but good fellows. They were dressed up and were they black. The four of us stood in a space about the size of a doorway.

After about 50 miles they left me and the next 250 miles sure was hell. I did everything but stand on my head After riding about six hours we got into St Louis. I didn’t know enough then to get off - went across the Mississippi. It looked a mile wide, and then into a damned tunnel. I came out of there sweating and black, and right into the railroad yards. I got off and made for the streets. I was in negro town - I stopped some negro (that’s all there were) and asked him where the transient camp was. He, thinking I was a negro also, directed me to the negro transient camp. I soon found out my mistake or rather the negro’s mistake, but I had to show the fellows in the transient camp that I wasn’t a negro by pulling up my sleeve. They told me where the white camp was a couple of miles up town.

I walked the longest distance without seeing anyone as it was after midnight. I finally saw a white fellow and ask him where the transient camp was and he said he was going up by it. We walked along and he asked me a million questions. I finally asked him if he knew where there was a cheap hotel as I said I didn’t care to go through the red tape of getting into one of the transient camps. He took me to a good clean hotel were I got a room for 25 cents. He was leaving me he showed me that I had been in good company - he was a plain clothes man (a policeman??). I went into the hotel and asked for a room and was given it. I then asked for the bath room. After I had cleaned up I went to the lobby and the clerk called me to the desk and changed my room. It seemed that because of my dirty appearance he thought that I was one of those kind of bums who never take a bath and he had put me in the section with them. He apologized and gave me another bed, and although it looked the same I noticed that the fellows around me were much cleaner.

They kidded me about looking like a negro before I cleaned up. They agreed that the “blind” was not a very good place to ride, and I was thoroughly fed up with trains. I resolved to go back to hitch-hiking the next day. I went out and got something to eat - a greasy stew.”

Monday, June 3, I awoke about 7 o’clock.”

His journal ended there telling only about those first two days. His trip lasted another 31 days. Mom told about how he hitched a ride for several days with a guy who drove a vehicle with a frame only, no body, and they sat on wooden boxes. The guy stopped at night and syphoned gas from filling station tanks.  There were probably other adventures - lost now, never to be told. I wish he had completed his journal. It would have made a great story.
GO TO: Part 4, The Father I Knew

William (Buck) R. Buckingham - Part 2, His Parents



Dorma Leora Manlove

My grandfather, John Harrison Buckingham, a cabinetmaker, was employed for many years as a woodworker in an Auto body factory in Connersville. The second born in 1881 in Franklin County, Indiana, he was the only male child in a family of five siblings. I know he was tall, slender, had red hair and gray eyes because that info was listed on his WWI draft card in 1918. He was also deaf in his last years, but I don’t know for how long. I know little more about him. He died of cancer in 1939, six months before I was born.

I’ve never seen a photo of him. I spoke to my Aunt Martha a few months before she died in 1998. She was the youngest, probably her father's pet, spoke warmly of him, and said she had many family photos and was going to send them to me. She had suffered a stroke a few years earlier, and wanted to get someone to write names and dates on the backs of the photos. Sadly, she passed shortly thereafter, and I don’t know what happened to her collection.
My Grandmother, nee Dorma Leora Manlove, was a big woman, tall, broad, and stiff of body. She carried herself as if her spine was fused throughout its length. Grandma had "lockjaw" (tetanus) when she was a child, so her jaw emited a clicking sound when she chewed food.

Brother Don and I visited Grandma Buckingham several times in the mid-1940s. I have little memory of her other than those visits. Her house was a big two storied building with covered porches, on the front and one side. It sat back a ways off the road. Two old trees near the gravel road shaded the front yard.

Grandma rented one side to a family who had a boy named Larry. He was our age and the three of us played in the creek (below) just down the road. I doubt that things had changed a whole lot in the thirty years since Dad was a boy. Grandma lost the farm in 1950 and moved to California to live with her daughter, Annis. She died there in 1962.

By the time I became aware of life it seemed that nearly everybody referred to Dad as “Buck”. I don’t know when that nick-name became common, but it was probably after he left home because there were too many in the family for all of them to be called “Buck”.

Dad graduated 3rd out of a class of 110 in 1930 from Connersville High School. Four years later he managed to graduate from Ball State Teacher’s College. His sister Annis attended college in Muncie Indiana also and graduated the year before him. It was in the middle of the Great Depression and I never heard how the two financed their higher education, but they probably worked their way through college. Aunt Annis’s daughter, Sarah said that, “My mother often talked about her college days. She worked as an au pair to the college administrators and their families. She never mentioned to me that Uncle Bill was there at the same time she was, odd.” Aunt Annis moved to California in 1937.
 GO TO: Part 3, The Hobo

William (Buck) R. Buckingham - Part 1, Childhood in Harrisburg, Indiana

Dad was born in Connersville, Indiana, but grew up on a small farm between there and Harrisburg, a nearby village. The farm was probably no more than three or four acres. They had a couple of cows and some chickens, but their place was mainly a residence, not a working farm. Dad grew to be tall and lanky. At six-foot three he bested his two older brothers by several inches. Tom, the oldest, was born in 1907. George followed in 1909, and then Annis in 1911. Dad came a year later in 1912, and the family was complete with the birth of Martha in 1918.

The Trees and our 1936 Ford in front of Dad's Childhood home

I don’t remember Dad relating a single thing about his childhood. I’ve spoken to several cousins and they tell the same tale. There was a curious silence from dad and his siblings about their formative years. The four older were in their teens during the 1920’s, but little has filtered down to us about the farm, how they did in school, life around Connersville and Harrisburg, who they hung around with, or what they did. Mom told of Dad’s interest in radio at a time when broadcasting was in its infancy. He built “crystal” radios and strung antenna wires crisscrossing the attic. Cousin Sarah, Aunt Annis’s daughter, wrote, “My mother always told me how smart he (Dad) was and what a great memory he had…their father let the kids each have one animal pet (chicken, pig, etc.) on the farm… and a charity bought them Christmas gifts one year and dad sawed the head off the doll my mother was given”. That is the extent of what I know about my father’s childhood.

The 1930 US census in Indiana listed all the family in residence except George. He was, apparently, the first to leave the hearth. George would have been twenty-one that year, and had enlisted in the Army, The 1930 Census listed him in the Vancouver Barracks, and indicated he was in the “guard house”. His daughter, Mary Ann, thought of him as being the “black sheep” of the family. He settled in northern California, living around Oroville and Marysville until his death in 1980. Tom, the oldest, moved to Norfolk, Virginia. Annis got a degree at Ball State and migrated ot California by 1935, and Dad moved to Kokomo in 1937. Martha, the youngest, was the only one to remain close to home.
GO TO: Part 2, His Parents