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| '56 Windsor - Dad's was ALL black. |
We stayed
that night in St Cloud (MN) – it was the last night on the road. The next
morning, the drive continued on up through Minnesota and I remember the green
pastures, the small lakes and lots of cattle as part of the beautiful view.
Vera and I were having a great time, laughing and joking around, and at one
point we were wrestling around and I ended up over the front seat-back,
sprawled with my head in the open glove box, both of us laughing like idiots.
The drive started to get a bit tedious for me in the afternoon, probably
because we were so close to being there and I was excited to see my new summer
home. You know... "Are we there yet?" The last few hours between
Duluth and Dollar Bay we were driving through heavy deciduous forest –there
isn’t much to see when you are in a tunnel of leafy trees – and I got very
bored and just wanted it to be over. I, of course, had no realization of how
much I would treasure the memory later.
I have
always wanted to retrace the route of this trip – but have not yet succeeded in
doing so. Of course, even the highways have changed a lot since 1965, not to
mention that virtually none of the roadside businesses would still exist today
– even if I remembered them. But we arrived in Dollar Bay that afternoon, and
the next morning I promptly set out to explore my new surroundings.
Life in Dollar Bay
First was
the gas station… my Dad’s station was on the highway that ran past the town. It
was a Standard Oil of Ohio station (today’s Amoco) and it was old even by 1965
standards. I remember a couple of things about it.
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| Where Dad's station WAS... |
First, was
the candy vending machine. It was a wall-mounted unit, probably 1 or 2 feet by
as much – and it operated by conveyor belt and window. You rolled a knob on the
side up and down, and the candy moved inside on a conveyor belt past a little
window – you centered your desirable in the window, slid your nickel into the
slot and pushed down on a side-lever to eject the delicacy. Soon, I discovered
that if you didn’t let go of the lever, but held it about halfway, the
mechanism would not engage and you could keep rolling the conveyor belt device
and pump out candy bar after candy bar, all for the measly sum of that first
nickel. Talk about 11-year-old heaven! I think I emptied that machine at least
once, maybe twice. My Dad thought his employees were stealing his candy, and it
took a savvy step-mom to put the kid’s suddenly diminished meal-time appetite
together with the theft problem at the station and arrive at the obvious
conclusion. I remember getting spanked for that one, but what would you expect
me to do, eh? Just not FAIR at ALL!
I was
allowed to “work” at the gas station. The rule was full-serve in those days,
and usually the job was held by teenaged or young men, or retirees. They’d pump
your gas, check your oil and wash your windshield clean. They were often named
“Bob” so I fit right in. I probably was not allowed to check anyone’s oil,
but I did do a lot of windshields and pumped a lot of gasoline, especially for
older ladies who seemed to know what a tip was and who deserved one. I thought
I had found my life’s work, there at that Standard Oil station in Dollar Bay.
My
step-mother’s young adult daughter lived there with them while her husband
(Robert Braesch) was in Army OCS. We all lived together in a trailer (a
single-wide of pretty good size). Janice was pregnant at the time, and already
had a toddler… named Bobby. So we had Bob my dad, we had Bob Braesch, we had
Bobby “Thumper” (the little guy), and then there was me, Bobby Louis (Thumper
could only say Bobby Boo for Louis) or sometimes I was Robert Louis when they
were upset about some inconsequential thing). We had all kinds of Bobs going on.
I remember playing card games with them pretty frequently -- probably gin rummy
because I remember playing that game that same summer with a Grandmother-type
(not mine, someone else’s) named “Moms.”
Our trailer
sat behind the main street (no one called them “mobile homes” back then), on a
lot about one street in (although that street did not exist). So between us and
the main street (to the north) there was one row of store fronts (and backs).
We could walk through the back and side lots to the main street – and between
us and the main street was an old cheese factory. The new cheese factory was
farther north out of town in what was then a large field or meadow. It is still
there today, but closed some years back and is boarded up. Also along the main
street I remember an IGA food store, and Sebas’s Bar. I can remember being sent
(or perhaps accompanying Vera) to the IGA to get ring bologna.
The old cheese
factory was used for storage of packaging products, cans, lids, etc. I can’t
remember what else was in there, maybe old equipment. But I could skinny-in
through a window and explore it. It was cool and dank smelling in there, like
an old attic.
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| The old Sebas's Tavern |
Dad and
Vera’s favorite hang-out in town was Sebas’s Bar. It still looks pretty much
the same today as I remember it then – although it has changed hands and the
name is different. It was similar to a pub in a small UK town – everyone seemed
to congregate there. Even Tootles liked it and spent some time there. She was a
popular character around the bar – always available to listen to your stories
or troubles – it was all the same to her. And Tootles fit in at Sebas’s, ‘cause
she was a beer-drinkin’dog. She even had her own dish, an ash tray someone had
washed up and set aside for her.
I remember
one particular evening when we’d spent quite some time at the bar, and Tootles
with us, drinking and socializing with the rest of them. We had driven to the
bar, which entailed a two or three-block drive around the neighborhood, as you
couldn’t drive straight there from the trailer. Upon arrival home at the end of
the evening, Vera let the somewhat inebriated dog out to tinkle – and she
disappeared. She ran back to the bar, of course – while Dad was done drinking
for the evening, Tootles, apparently, was not. No control, that dog. When a
concerned Vera couldn’t find her dog, just on a hunch one of them called the
bar and inquired, “Was Tootles there?” The reply… “Yep, she’s over here havin’
a beer!”
In 1965, the
Soo Line (railroad) operated two trains along the Keweenaw Peninsula each day,
in my recollection. First, in the morning, a freight consist came through, took
a siding and stopped at the cheese factory to load. The factory had a large set
of train-sized sliding doors, and the train would“drive” right through the
factory to an all-weather loading dock. They’d load the train, or unload the
train, and then it would go on north, back to the main tracks, and proceed to
the end of the line wherever that was. Later that day, a faster train would
come by without stopping, headed north. I remember this train as a mail train,
or maybe passenger. It wasn’t a long one – 4 or 5 cars maybe – and it came
through fast.
A retired
railroader lived in a shack by the switch and threw it (and the other one too,
presumably) twice a day for these trains. As things were fairly sleepy and calm
in northern Michigan towns in 1965 he usually didn’t bother locking these
switches as he was supposed to do. This was a mistake, ‘cause there was a new
boy in town. The local boys didn’t pay much attention to the trains I guess,
having grown up with them and probably having been warned repeatedly to stay
away from them. But the Arizona boy, not having seen too many trains, was
fascinated by them and by train appurtenances… like switching devices. Finding
one unlocked one afternoon, he threw it over to one side, and then the other,
and when the game grew old, left it wherever it was at the time. Other boys
helped him with this mischief, as the switch was too big for one small boy to
handle, but these lily-livered poor-excuses for adventurers-type boys denied
this later… It happened to be left on the cheese factory “position” but the
next train was not the cheese factory train.
So that day,
a lazy summer day in June of 1965, the fast mail train went to the cheese
factory. It is my recollection that the train finally stopped just a few feet
from the closed doors of the dairy. Town meetings were held, chests were
thumped, but the perpetrator was never apprehended – no one ratted me out I
guess. Years later, I told my father of that event and he allowed as how he had
thought at the time that I might have had some part in it.
One of my
best memories of Dollar Bay was its 4th of July celebration – it was a typical
small town party – economical in scope, but full of small town fun of the best
kind. There was probably a parade, and games like sack races, egg tosses,
pie-eating, etc. I remember it today as one of the most fun times I ever had on
the 4th of July. A few months ago, I visited Dollar Bay and Sebas’s bar (now
Partanon’s). I slipped a little cash into the jar on the bar for the Fourth of
July Celebration – I hope it helped them have a great time again this year.
Along with
the station, my Dad acquired an old 1950s model Chevrolet pick-up. It was faded
and battered (barn red), but was probably the most reliable vehicle in town.
Dad told me stories of how the previous winter, when the snows were heavy and
deep and the winds cold, that old truck would start when nothing else in town
would and then he’d have to go around and help everyone else get their vehicles
running. It was the ugliest truck I’d ever seen, but it ran and ran and ran.
One last
little bit of “trouble” I got into that summer was mostly smoke and mirrors – a
friend or two and I “planned” to build a raft and float ourselves out into Portage
Lake (which opened onto Lake Superior). This
was just boyish dreaming – we really had no sure intention to do this. We
really had no way to accomplish it – and I certainly lacked those kinds of
construction skills at age 11, but the “plan” was discovered somehow and we were
sternly admonished not to even
consider such a plan.
My Dad had
spent some time and money restoring an old classic Jaguar – it was a model from
the 1940s [an XK140 “Silverstone” (?)] that he had restored to pristine condition
from not much more than junk. In fact, the story was that he had found the hulk
in a junk-yard. It was a very rare automobile. It had been left in Phoenix
when he departed and at some point in the spring he had returned to Phoenix to
get it. He had hauled it behind his car back to Dollar Bay and upon arrival
stopped in front of the station to show it off to the employees. So the Jag on
its trailer was sitting beside the highway in front of the station. The station
was just beyond the broad curve that exists between Hancock, Michigan and
Dollar Bay, about 5 miles away. A little old lady in a VW came flying around
that curve, lost it on the icy road, and slid the last 500 feet or so right into
the Jag and its trailer, destroying them both. All my Pop could do was stand
there and watch it happen. He said he’d never even gotten to drive it.
Farther
north from Dollar Bay there was a little town named Lake Linden. We’d go there
to get groceries (usually in the old Chevy truck), and I remember at least once
going there to see a movie at the drive in theater. Another town in that
direction was Calumet – and Calumet had an airport that North Central Airlines
served, flying venerable old DC-3s. I remember watching them fly by on their
way to land there.
We had
dinner once in the Hotel Houghton (?) in a very fancy dining room, as hotel
restaurants tended to be in 20th century America. Vera and I soon began cutting
up and started a food fight with the butter "pats" that came with the bread.
My Dad could only shake his head and try to stay out of the line of fire – and
we very nearly got thrown out of the restaurant. Hotel dining rooms were fancy
places -- and we were not acting respectable.
Moving to Detroit
Sometime
right after July 4th, my Dad lost the gas station (reportedly because of
crooked behavior on the part of a partner, a man named Bob Crutherds) and we
moved to Keego Harbor, near Pontiac and Detroit. Dad got a drafting job with
Bendix in Royal Oak and that was his first step on the journey to becoming the
mechanical engineer that he later became. He had completed a correspondence
course to prepare himself for the drafting job. We stayed in Keego Harbor with
a sister of my step-mother.
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| Cass Lake, MI |
While there,
I remember riding around in a Corvair Monza “Spyder” with a “cousin” who had only one
lung but had served in Vietnam, having slipped past the Army doctors without
notice. I had the very first Big Mac I’d ever had – we didn’t eat at McDonald’s
at home in Phoenix. I went on a summer field trip to Detroit for something (I
seem to recollect that it was Ford’s “Dearborn Village” but I cannot now
remember ever being there) and I remember playing in the water and on the beach
of the little lake that Keego Harbor is situated on (Cass Lake). And checking
out the local girls.
The trip
from Dollar Bay to Keego Harbor was a fun day – although a long one. We drove
all the way across the Upper Peninsula – stopping long enough to tour a USCG
icebreaker on open house display at Marquette and we crossed the Mackinac
Bridge in the late afternoon or early evening. I had never seen anything like
it, and was a little bit skeered to be up on a huge suspension bridge over
ocean-type waters! We made the trip in two vehicles – the Chrysler and also a
Pontiac Dad had picked up for the trip. The old Chevy pick-up stayed in Dollar
Bay somewhere. But it was a great drive that evening in that old Pontiac as we
made our way south toward Detroit – road-tripping on dark highways has always
been a favorite adventure of mine.
Getting Back Home
Later in
July, we started thinking about how I would get home for the school year.
Originally, it was thought I would ride to Phoenix with my Grandmother and
Grandfather (Pampaw and Mammaw Mills). They had spent the summer in Indiana and
would be driving back to Phoenix in late August or early September. But Pampaw
(Ernie Mills) was very ill by that time – and their return to Arizona was
complicated as a result. Eventually, they decided that Grandma and Uncle Tim
would drive to Arizona, but Pampaw would fly from Chicago. His doctors said he
wouldn’t survive if he tried to do it by car. But Dad and Vera could drive me
down to Indiana, and I could ride to Arizona with Mamaw and Tim.
Meanwhile, a
friend or perhaps neighbor of my step-mother’s family named Vera Ott planned a
flight to Los Angeles to visit her family. If I accompanied her, then Dad could
send me home (cheaply) on the plane to Los Angeles with her, and then a 2nd
airline (Western) would take me home from there. I was given the choice. Life
lesson number one: if given the choice of something fun, versus something that
involves seeing relatives, especially OLD relatives, always choose the “seeing
relatives” thing. I gave up that chance to see my Grandfather for what would
have been the last time, unknowingly of course, but still. He died while on his
plane trip to Arizona a couple of weeks later. I treasure these memories,
perhaps you can tell; but I wish I could change that one.
I was taken
to the airport in Detroit in my “Aunt’s” 1956 Chevy Bel-Air– and boarded an
American Airlines Boeing 707 with Vera Ott – we flew to Los Angeles via Chicago
O’Hare – right over Lake Michigan, in clear skies. I wish I knew what model of
707 it was – it could have been a 720B also, I suppose – but I do remember it
was a new fanjet-equipped model, not one with straight turbines. Later, I saw
the Rockies and the Grand Canyon from somewhere around 34,000 feet. This was in
the infancy of the jet age – jet travel had only begun about 5 years before and
piston engine aircraft were still common in U.S. skies. The 727 was a brand-new
jet in 1965, only flying at that point for a year or two. I had airline food
back when airline food was something.
Breakfast, for example, was corned beef hash with baked eggs on that first
flight.
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| Western Airlines Electra |
I flew home
from Los Angeles that same day, on my sister’s wedding day (July 29, 1965), on
Western Airline's Flight 54. It was operated with a Lockheed L-188 Electra and
the stewardesses spoiled me rotten. I sat in first-class where they could keep
an eye on me. That Electra floated in and around the fluffy cumulus clouds and
landed me back in Phoenix on a hot July day. The aircraft was working its way
from California all the way north to Calgary by the time it ended its journey
that day. That was a memorable and great trip – my first of many on the
airlines and airways of America.
