Memories Of Boone Iowa

Ol' MJ is in a sort of melancholy mood this morning. I've been thinking a great deal about growing up in Boone, Iowa and every so often tidbits of information cross my mind. Do you do this? I'm sure it's a natural thing for all. The time we spend at home with our parent's is so short but the maturation process is jam packed full of memories and activities. Most of mine revolve around my Sacred Heart grade school buddies until I left the parochial school in '58 and stepped into another world. There were only fifteen boys in our grade school class. I hung out with four or five. I wonder what happened to the rest of them.
The local YMCA wasn't a modern day building. It was a two story brick structure and seems to me like it must have been built around the Civil War period. Carl Saubert ran the place and he was a no nonsense guy. He was all for kids but if you brought an attitude you'd find yourself out in the street. Since the initials YMCA stood for Young Men's Christian Association I had to promise my parent's I'd avoid any religious meetings of which they never had any. We Catholics, in those days, had to beware of outside influences to make sure we didn't go to hell. Finally, I scrounged the $2.50 from my grandma to join. My life long buddy, Dick Musser and I, spent hours at the Y. It was a status symbol to have 'Muss' as a friend. He had three brother's who were star basketball players for the local high school team and since I hung out at 109 Linn Street, his house, I became a part of the inner family circle. Needless to say I was starstruck.
One of our favorite Y games was board hockey. We'd each have a six inch stick. The board game was the size of a card table and to start we'd drop a checker on the board. The winner hit the checker with the stick and tried to get it through an opening on either end. The game was modern day foosball. My son has one of these games in his basement but with all the fancy players and handles his cost big money. Our game cost about ten cents in materials. I bet we had just as much fun as my son. The Y had Coke for sale but the drink came in glass bottles in those days. We'd buy a bag of peanuts and drop them in the Coke. A finer concoction was never created. The Y gym was munchkin small; about half the size of a regular basketball court and the floor was made of concrete. It had a balcony above but I can't recall anyone ever running on it. People didn't run to stay healthy in the 50's. People didn't run period unless they were trying out for the Olympics or to get away from a 'Hood'(a faux tough guy). The Y had an organized basketball league for fifth and sixth graders. Aside from Sacred Heart there were five or six other grade schools in town who played in it along with the Lutheran school. Get this! They set up a championship game with the winner getting a trophy. We won it when I was in sixth grade, defeating Dick Musser's Bryant squad, and our pictures were in the Boone News-Republican. For us kids having a picture in the Boone News was like being on the cover of Sports Illustrated. In those days there weren't 'participation trophies'. It was winner take all. The next day the nuns made a big deal out of us winning. They were so happy we beat the 'Public school boys'. One of them even said she prayed the rosary for us. We even had cheerleaders at the game. I had a crush on Carol Dahlgren. She looked good in her white cheerleader sweater even if there was probably nothing under it but a t-shirt. Normally, players played in street clothes but somehow we snagged jersey tops with three Greek letters across the front. Jude Rolfes, he's a hoarder, sent me the news article with a picture of our team a couple of months ago. You can see what the piggy MJ Hawkeye looked like in 1958 along with his grade school pals.

My parent's bought a television in 1952. They always had to have things first. Buy now pay later was their motto; not a good policy to live by. Anyway, we only had one television station in '52. It was WOI out of Ames, Iowa. Correct me if I'm wrong but they might have had four shows on during day. There would be a fifteen minute cooking show then an hour later some guy from Iowa State University came on with a farm and hog report. In between these mini shows the screen would be a test pattern. Now, since I was six at the time and only a few years out of the womb, this fascinated me. I'd sit down 'Indian style'(we could say that in those days without fear of being sued) and watch the test pattern. It had a constant humming sound. Don't laugh. Twenty years later college students received the same positive jolt from looking at lava lamps.
As the decade of the Fifties progressed the family sitcoms became family television. Kids and parent's alike watched the 'I Love Lucy Show'. Check your memory bank on this one: when filming, the producers, even though Ricky and Lucy were married in real life, made them have separate beds.
Beginning in 1955 my favorite TV show was Captain Kangraroo. His real life name was Bob Keeshan. He was a WWII hero on Iwo Jima and later in life played the role of Clarabelle the Clown. I liked him better in his first role. I still miss Mr. Greenjeans and Tom Terrific with Mighty Manfred the wonder dog cartoons. Maybe they're on YouTube. Hey, I've just found a project for today.
A week ago I emailed a friend in Winston-Salem telling her how much I detested the 24 hour news cycle in which we now live. "The world is swirling", I said. I told her I wanted to go back to the Eisenhower Years. She's a tad bit younger than I and informed me she didn't know about them. That's too bad. Life was so, so simple then. I told you I was having a melancholy morning.