A Brief Encounter

I bartended at the Moose Lodge for several years while I was going to college. My work station was usually at the service bar, a small cubicle looking out onto the ball room and stage. There were no bar stools, no customers, just four or five waitresses calling out a constant stream of drink orders. The compact bar had everything within reach: booze bottles on rear shelves, beers in the front coolers, clean glasses on the bar top, and ice in the hole. One other guy joined me in the limited space as we turned out one drink after another. The fast paced action made for a lot of fun.

I worked with a couple guys over those summers, either Art or Wayne. They were both Moose members, fifteen or twenty years older than me, and worked to pick up a few dollars on weekends. Both were fun to work with as our activity often resembled a choreographed dance. Maybe the band music helped set the tempo, and much of the enjoyment came from our coordinated action.

We served a variety of drinks. I might grab two beers with each hand, pop the caps and set them on the tray, while the other would be making a grasshopper and I’d hand him a needed bottle of Crème de Mint. I’d start a martini. He’d mix a seven and seven, then I’d reach for the sweet vermouth to make a Manhattan, then a whiskey sour…and so on. We worked well together and I think the two enjoyed the harmonized dance as much as I did.

The weekends saw a lot of action at the Moose. A local band performed each Friday and Saturday, and the spacious dance floor was always full. Sometimes all the waitresses would be shouting orders at us at the same time. There were few lulls during the evenings, and closing time at twelve or one was always welcome.

I would be a bit weary, but having been injected with adrenalin by the evening’s action, was not prepared to go home. We’d draw our pay, ten or twelve bucks for the night ($2 per hour) and put a receipt in the till. The vigor of youth was running through my veins, so I usually joined others heading off to a local establishment to relax and unwind.

One night, near the end of the summer, some people brought in a woman who had worked as a waitress at the Moose the year before. Mom and Dad had told me her story. She was in a fiery auto accident the previous summer, had been burned over most of her body, and hospitalized for months. Several described the young women as having been pretty and popular before the accident dealt her a sad fate. I’d never met her, so the only memory I have is of a burned out hulk. She was a human wreck, likely unrecognizable by those who had known her before. Most of her face had been spared the flames, but her voice was effected, and I think much of her body was scar tissue. Both legs were trapped in braces, and she shuffled, each leg swinging awkwardly forward as she managed a hobbling walk on crutches.

That was back in 1963. Nearly half a century has passed. I didn’t know much about her. I never knew her age, maybe thirty. She was tall, maybe 5’ 9”. I knew nothing about her past, where she was born and grew up, or who her family might have been. I no longer even remember her name.

She came by the lodge on two or three occasions, and one night joined a small group after closing. We went to a bar with music and a dance floor. Art, my bartending partner, and his wife were her friends. He plodded me to ask her to dance. I did so as a courtesy and was surprised she accepted.

Our dance was more of a balancing act than a slow two-step. She had neither the coordination nor strength to do more than teeter back and forth. I noticed a young man smirking at our presence, looking us up-and-down in a manner that signaled his attitude of superiority. I could have challenged him, but I was wise enough, even then, to realize that his attitude was more his problem than ours.

I drove her home that night, stopping in front of a small house in a nice neighborhood. She open the door on the passenger side and asked me if I‘d come in, and then said something like, “You won’t be sorry!”.

I was at a loss. I was being propositioned, and had no idea how to deal with it. I made some lame excuse of it being late and I was tired. A slight pause followed and then, in a plaintive voice she said, "Well, I won’t beg”. She closed the door and shuffled up the walk and disappeared into the house. I never saw her again. Mom said she died the following year.

I yet wonder if she asked me in because she was trying to find a reason to go on living, but I lacked adequate experience in that side of life, and wasn’t willing or able to help. I’ve often pondered what my response would have been had she ask for such a favor before misfortune befell her. Or would she even have bothered? In a way I was as prejudice as the smirking jerk on the dance floor. Maybe, if I’d known her before, or if I had been older and wiser, then maybe I could have offered a benevolence.

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

My First Year in Alaska

The day after I arrived in Anchorage I started hunting for a room and a job, mainly a room. June is one of the few months when sunny days should not be surprising, but it was raining the day I arrived, and I don’t remember being exposed to sunlight for some while after. There was one cloudy day after another in June of 1967. I did not feel like camping any longer, didn’t like the idea of crawling out of a soggy tent each morning, and I wanted to be able to clean up and hunt for a job.

I settled in the Mid-town area though the reason escapes me; perhaps it was because the Moose Lodge happened to be located there on Arctic Blvd. I was a member of the Kokomo lodge, knew fellow Moose would have ideas as to employment and housing, so I frequented the lodge several times over the succeeding months.


The local newspaper provided a couple leads on housing. The first was at the Fireweed Hotel off Arctic. It lay between Fireweed Street and Northernlights Boulevard and seemed more of a rooming house than hotel. The tenants were really young. I was only twenty-seven, but felt like the old man of the place. The room must have been a closet in its former life. The door jammed against the bed upon opening; there were no windows, and one’s legs brushed the bed and wall while edging around its perimeters. The place was a prescription for claustrophobia.

My First home in Alaska

1037 W 26th Avenue, Anchorage, Alaska

The second offering, only a couple blocks away, on 26th Avenue, was near perfect in comparison. My new abode was in the basement of a three story stucco house. The main floor housed the owner/landlady and her teenage daughter. The top floor and basement had been converted to room rentals. I had a spacious room adjoining a small living room that lead into the kitchen. The house sat a block east of Spenard road, close to a grocery, several restaurants, and a couple bars - everything a single guy needed. I was in the “Heart of Spenard”.

Bill Peasal and Bill Smith

Two fellows occupied a room off the kitchen. They were both named Bill and both came from South Dakota, though the similarity ended there. Bill Smith was tall and slim like a bean pole. He stood six foot six, and weighed no more than a hundred-fifty pounds, wore plad cowboy shirts, slim fitting jeans and cowboy boots. Smith was confident, sure of himself, and spoke of things in a knowing manner. Bill Peasal reached a medium height and weight, but was a quiet, mild-mannered fellow, almost bashful. Both were married with wives back in South Dakota. Smith worked at an auto parts store; Peasal labored for a construction company. Both had been in the state for less than a year.

Bill Smith

Anchorage numbered about fifty thousand, and the military bases counted for that many again. Much about the town was frontier, many side streets were gravel, sidewalks were rare, and more than one parking lot lacked pavement. There wasn’t much happening in town that year, the economy was kind of slow, and not many good jobs were available. I took one as a custodian with the school district within the week, figuring something better might come along, but continued to work through the winter. Crews were involved in giving each school a thorough cleaning. During the summer I moved from one location to another as the season progressed and was assigned a position at the new Dimond High School that fall.

Landlady Louise Machievski

I was a bit short of money through the summer. Mom and Dad sent me a check for a couple hundred. I had to open a checking account and wait several weeks before the money was available so I didn't adventure out of town other than a one day trip to Portage Glacier in July. Mainly I stayed in town working and passing time reading books, many about Alaska and the North.

Bill Peasal

Several things happened in August. Bill Peasal and another fellow were taking building materials to Valdez, Alaska when the truck’s breaks went out going down Thompson Pass into Valdez. The driver could not navigate the final curve at the bottom and they crashed. Both survived, but only by luck. It so happened the only doctor in town was being visited by his three sons, who also happened to be doctors. The four worked on the two injured men for several hours. That coincident saved their life, but Bill was in the hospital for a month. The other thing that happened in August was I met Wes Warner.
GO TO: Meeting Wes Warner

The Moose Lodge - Part 6, The Epilog

I went to Google Images while writing this article, hoping to find a photo of the lodge as it existed in its original condition. To my surprise, there was not a Moose Lodge listed in Kokomo. I did a Web search and found the building up for sale. I called the realtor and he told me the Lodge’s charter had been given up a couple years ago, the building was rented for a while, and a local restaurant had recently purchased it. I know comedians have mined a wealth of material from the quaint rituals, frocks and caps donned by members of the fraternal lodges. I know the Moose, Eagles, and Masons, etc., are vestiges of a bygone era, and the part played in society will not rise to the prominence once enjoyed. I know all things come to pass, but I can’t help feeling a twinge of sadness, and wonder that maybe, we have lost something of value, something that will not be easily replaced. THE END

The Moose Lodge - Part 5, The Tornado Aftermath

An eerie silence followed after the funnel passed. The surviving light fixtures swung listlessly, providing the sole animation to the shadowy scene. Don complained of pain in his side. I found a place for him to sit, and then went to survey the destruction.

The building resembled structures I’d seen in photos of bombed out cities. The glass doors behind me were the only survivors in the front area. Cool air circulated through the wreckage as I went out to the front, noticing the flag pole (above) was bent 30 degrees from the vertical. I didn’t stay long as a hail storm trailing the tornado began pelting me with golf ball sized projectiles.

I scurried around and found a flashlight behind the bar. Vehicles were beginning to move up and down Washington Street. I flashed the light toward them but got no response, and guessed they had more important things to do, or more likely, didn’t even see my faint signal.

Two of the outside walls of the office had blown outward causing the roof to collapse (above). The office doors were closed, there were no windows, and the vacuum of the funnel cloud had caused it to explode. Dad later said that it was lucky for him that he wasn’t there as he would probably have taken refuge in the office.

It was an eerie surprise to go into the kitchen at the back of the building; its was entirely intact, nothing out of place. The back windows had been left open (above) so air had vacated through them - no explosion.

Window frames at the windward front of the building were bend, curving inward (above). The frames on the leeward backside were blown out and lay on the ground (below). That included the window frame behind the stage area. It too had been ripped loose and the grand piano that sat on the stage was gone. The tables and chairs had been removed and replaced by new furniture - a mattress in one case. Mom‘s car was nowhere in sight.

A man and wife I’d seen at many moose activities drove into the parking lot while I was outside looking for Mom’s car. They were on their way home when the tornado crossed their path, forcing them to ride it out in the car. They were pretty shaken as the auto had been bounced around, even lifted off the ground at one point and carried to the other side of the road.

Mom and Dad were let into the area about a hour after the storm. They decided Don should go to the hospital, which was a good thing, as he had several broken ribs. They dropped me off at a temporary medical station on the way. I think it was on Markland Avenue near Washington Street. They had lots of things that needed attention so I told them I’d get home on my own once my cut finger got some stitches.

The waiting area of the station had several rows of folding chairs filled with people - all appeared to be in shock. Several canvas cubicles were aligned against a wall, a doctor worked behind each curtain. Most everybody seemed to be in worse shape than me so I sat over two hours as the room emptied. I spoke to the guy next to me. He sat, huddled with a blanket wrapped around his body. He said he and his wife had gotten under the bed, and the last thing he remembered was spinning around and around. He woke up in a field next to his house. He didn’t know what had happened to his wife.

I was the last to be called behind one of the curtains and there stood John Hutto, a former high school class mate who I had not seen since our graduation. We exchanged mutual histories of our intervening years while he sutured the “V” cut at the side of my middle finger. He was about to complete med-school, and that night was possibly his first real experience at doctoring. I think that I was one of his first stitching jobs, and noticed his hands were shaking more than mine. He did well. We parted and I never saw him again.

I walked the three miles home, getting there after two in the morning. I don’t remember that I slept that night as adrenalin continued to surge. I took several showers over the next few days because I’d find grit and sand under my finer nails when ever I scratched my head.

I worked for the Moose all of the following week. Dad hired me and my truck to be available for odd jobs during cleanup. Mom’s car sat in an adjacent field a hundred yards north of the lot - a total loss. It had been picked up, carried, and dashed to the ground several times. I found a perfect imprint of the front grill and headlights stamped into the soft soil. Further on there was a big gash in the newly plowed field where the car had landed on its side. It sat upright facing the direction from which it had blown. It was rumpled but intact. The piano was fragmented, and scattered over the field and beyond.

The night’s event became known as the Palm Sunday Tornado. It was actually a series of 47 tornados, the second biggest outbreak in history. The funnels passed through six Midwestern states: Iowa, Illinois, Wisconsin, Indiana, Michigan and Ohio. The one that struck Kokomo, one of the most violent, had wind that reached a velocity up to 260MPH, while cutting a swath of destruction 900 feet wide. The tornado followed a 48 mile path through Russiaville, Alto and the southern part of Kokomo before heading toward Greentown and Marion. It was responsible for 25 of the 271 lives lost that night.

GO TO: Part 6, The Epilog

The Moose Lodge - Part 4, The Palm Sunday Tornado

Easter weekend of 1965 was one of those mile-stones in my life, one I’ll vividly remember. I was home from college on holiday, and dad hired me to help the janitor, Don Fewell, clean the building that Sunday. It was April 11, Palm Sunday. I left the house after dinner and drove Mom’s 1962 Chrysler Winsor, as it sat behind and blocked my 1950 Dodge truck. I got to the Moose about 6PM, parked in back, near the kitchen door. Don’s car was the only other on the lot.

We worked for several hours, Don in the bar area, while I swept and mopped the other end near the stage and dance floor. The folding doors that partitioned off the dining and poker area were open, so the building was one big long room from stage through to the poker area. It was partitioned off for Lodge meetings, Bingo, and special events, but usually, like that night, left open.

Don had tuned the radio to local WIOU. We worked to the sound of music, but kept getting an increasing number of weather updates - repeated warning of tornados moving in from the southwest. Don and I went to the front door to check toward the indicated direction. The wind was picking up; we could see fast moving clouds in a turbulent sky, but nothing to get alarmed about. We went back to work. I remember returning to check the weather several more times. The sun had set by 9pm, and the sky on the western horizon was bitch black. We could see the wind was getting even more active.

The radio reported a tornado sighting in Alto, a small farming community just two miles from us. Shortly thereafter we began hearing the wind from inside the building. Vent shudders in the ceiling began to flap open and shut in noisy rhythmic beats. The sound of the wind rose to an alarming pitch. Don and I, without agreement, walked toward each other, meeting in the dining area near the front. We stood between the two walls that jutted a short distance into the room. (“J” and “D” in the drawing). Both of us were transfixed as the noise became even louder. We stood looking into the room toward the bar area. There were large windows all around the building, big double pane ones nearly eight feet high. Glass doors stood right behind us. Through those doors could be seen the glass doors of the lobby, and then the glass front doors opening to the portico. We were looking through the windows along the wall behind the bar. We could see a big steel incendiary the lodge use for burning trash. It probably weighed a half ton. It suddenly lifted off the pad like a rocket heading for the moon, and then one of the big windows behind the bar exploded. Don and I both had the same thought, “Damn, that’s going to be a mess to clean up”. We were soon absolved of that chore as every window in the place began to crash as the storm moved inside.

Things suddenly got serious. The lights failed; the decibel level rose to that generated by freight trains; light fixtures swung violently; and the air seemed to have been sucked out of the room. I grouched and then laid prone against the wall with my hands covering my head. I looked into the room to see ghostly silhouettes flying by. Don, to my right, was grouched in a semi-squat at the end of the other wall, holding on, but dangerously exposed - not doing well. The violence lasted only a few minutes - minutes of fear, exaltation, and wonder. I couldn’t help from looking into that wind tunnel of cascading debris. I didn’t even notice I’d been hurt.

GO TO: Part 5, The Tornado Aftermath

The Moose Lodge - Part 3, The Old Lodge Burns; A New One Rises from the Ashes

The original moose building burned in the spring of 1960. I believe it was caused by an electrical short in the kitchen. The multi-alarm fire sent flames dramatically skyward, as fire trucks arched streams of water into the air, and hoses crisscrossed the streets. The glow, visible all over town, attracted people like moths to a flame, and a good portion of the citizenry showed up to view the pyrrhic spectacle.


The building was declared a total loss. We walked through it a few days later. Most of the main floor, the office and the ball room did not seem to have received much flame, but the hardwood floors, having had thousands of gallons of water poured on them, were warped and buckled, standing like sea waves frozen in a storm. The upstairs got the heat. That is where Don and I found our portable stereo record player that Dad had borrowed. It was barely recognizable, and the records resembled the warped floors.


Don and I received a hundred dollars for our melted records and charred player. We preceded to order a stereo amplifier kit and speakers. I assembled the amplifier over the summer while Don built the speaker boxes. By fall we had a state-of-the-art stereo system to take on campus at Indiana University in Bloomington.


The insurance money enabled the Lodge to plan a modern, state-of-the-art building. It was finished in 1961 - a beautifully designed edifice that surely became the talk and envy of the town’s other lodges. The floor plan below is not to scale but provides an accurate depiction of the layout.
The new building sat on six acres. There was nearly an acre of lawn in front imbuing the place with the façade of wealth and high society. A driveway passed under the front portico. The obvious intent of the architect was that cars would empty their passengers in front, simulating high class clientele attending gala events. Unfortunately the parking lot, big enough for a couple hundred cars, was placed in the back. Drivers seldom disgorged there people in front. Nearly all chose to go directly to the rear, and none elected to walk back around to the main entrance, opting instead to enter through the service door. The lodge possessed a facility the Country Club set salivated over and the members chose to come in through the kitchen. So much for refined life and sophistication. The members were working class, proud of it, and thought nothing of using the back door.
Mom said that for a while she signed up new members nearly everyday, and their rolls skyrocketed. By the mid-sixties the Moose counted three thousand members. That period marked its hay-day. The place was jammed every weekend as members danced to the music of local bands. Big name bands such as those of Guy Lombardo, Artie Shaw, and Bob Crosby were scheduled and sold out. The restaurant dished out a daily lunch special to a large clientele, and offered a variety of steaks at dinner. The club room was active six nights a week, and the poker tables filled to capacity on Thursdays with six-card stud players.


My twenty-first birthday present was a membership to the Moose. The induction was probably at the temporary location on north Washington Street in early 1961. About a dozen of us were inducted that night. We sat in three rows of folding chairs awaiting the ceremony. I was in the second or third row. The guy next to me asked why I was joining, and I told him it was because Dad was the head of the lodge and it was his wish - that I didn’t really care much one way or the other. When dad handed me the membership slip he apologized rather than offering me congratulation. I never thought he could have heard what I said, which he must have, or I would have answered the man differently.


I became a part-time employee that following summer. The new lodge was in need of additional bartenders on weekends so I earned $2 an hour mixing a number of fancy drinks popular at the time. Weekend work was fast and furious with three and four waitresses calling out orders at the same a time. There was constant action, and lots of fun for a 21 year old. That fall I got jobs bartending in Bloomington when I went back to campus. I worked five or six years at the trade.
GO TO: Part 4, The Palm Sunday Tornado

The Moose Lodge - Part 2, The Original Building

The original Kokomo lodge building was constructed around 1910 on the northeast corner of Buckeye and Taylor Streets. The gaudy Victorian architecture was familiar to the era. The brick building boasted four thick columns in front with a steep stairway ascending to a large covered porch.

The only inhabitant of the spacious porch was a modest sized, stuffed moose mounted on a wheeled platform; its sad demise being indicated by the round bullet hole conspicuous in its side. It stood alone on that platform through many seasons. The porch would have provided a great vantage for watching parades, but none came that direction, so I don’t remember ever seeing anybody keeping company with that silent sentinel of the Loyal Order of Moose.

The front door opened to a spacious lobby with a couple of large antlered Moose heads sticking out of the opposing wall. The office, to the left, was in the front corner. A counter ran the length of that end. Double doors to the right of the counter opened onto the Ball Room . That was the main entertainment center, where the lodge had its weekend dances.

Stair cases at the other end of the lobby led up and down. The more conspicuous one led to an upper level whose floor plan matched the one below. The stairs opened to a front lounge with windows looking down on the porch. The large room behind, usually reserved for solemn lodge meetings, was often commandeered for weekend activities.

The other staircase on the main lobby, less conspicuous, led to the basement. It housed the Club Room, which was a stag area, a place for men only. Members had a key to the door, or were “buzzed entry” by a button in the office.

I was down there only once that I remember. Dad took brother Don and I to the lodge one Sunday when I was about eight or nine, and we were allowed to see that inner-sanctum of male bonding. It was a large windowless room, dark, emitting an odor of tobacco smoke and stale beer. There was an old mahogany bar against one wall, lined with stools.

A couple of pool tables stood nearby, card tables sat off to one side, and slot machines lined another wall - a “speak-easy” out of the past. Dad gave us a few coins with which to play the machines and the one-arm bandits promptly stole them.
GO TO: Part 3, The Old Lodge Burns

The Moose Lodge - Part 1, Dad Becomes the Moose Manager

My dad, William R.(Buck) Buckingham, became the secretary and manager of the Kokomo Moose Lodge in 1946. I don’t know why he choose that particular career as he left one that seemed to have greater promise.

He knew electronics and had worked as a civilian instructor for the Army Air Corp during the war teaching airmen to operate and repair their radios. Mom claimed that federal officials approached him after the war to offer a position in the new space program, but he declined. For what ever the reason he quit his job in the lab at Delco radio and took a position that he held for the next twenty-five years.

The Moose Lodge, along with the other fraternal clubs - the Eagles, Elks, Masons, etc. - were prominent fixtures on the American landscape at mid-century. The lodges, combinations of social club, bar, restaurant, and nightclub, were active in local and national politics. They were also deeply involved in the community, sponsoring social events and participating in charitable activities.

In a sense the lodges operated in place of insurance companies. No one in my family had health or life insurance. We were not unusual in that respect, most middle class folk did without it - things were different then, doctors made house calls, you paid them at the door as they were leaving.
The Moose supported Mooseheart, an orphanage the kids and wife could go to should death make an unexpected appearance. Moosehaven was a retirement home in Florida available to older members. The other lodges offered their own form of “insurance”.

A good portion of the town’s people were affiliated with one or the other of the lodges, and the blacks had one too, The Keystone Club. Dad was also a member of the Elks and the Eagles. I always considered the Elks to be the upper crust of the lodges, but that opinion may not have merit.

There was an intercity-lodge council in which all the clubs came together to jointly plan many events. In those days the lodges, along with labor unions, acted as social glue, and they represented one leg of power for working and middle class America.

I was six years old when Dad went with the Moose, an age at which my understanding of the world was at the beginning of coherency. Before that there was only disjointed images of the war. Moose lodge activities formed one of those milestones of my life. There was the war and then there was the Moose.

I grew up around lodge activities, events such as: Saturday night dances and being endlessly bored in the baby-sitting area (I happily aged out of those in a few years); the Children’s Christmas program (at which each kid received a brown paper bag of candy, nuts and an orange - its contents identical to the ones provided in all the previous years), delivering food boxes to needy families with Dad (and sometimes recognizing the house, and knowing the kids inside); Fourth of July fireworks (and getting to serve “behind the lines“); Moosehaven in Florida (Dad drove an aged Moose member to the rest home in January 1953. Brother Don & I got to go as it was Christmas vacation); Mooseheart, “The City of Children” (We went on a chartered bus one time).
GO TO: Part 2, The Original Building